A Violet Ember
by AtomicProBomb
Summary: Violet is a flame spirit among few. After losing faith in humans, a small, pink-haired kid might change her feelings.
1. Chapter 1

Hello to everyone that randomly found this story or came from my original story! I'm happy to give you the beginning of my second story, quite excited to start on this one. I still have my first story so I won't update it as frequently as that one, at least not in the for a while. But I'm definitely gonna try my hardest to put chapters out there! I will make my first attempt at a story told in First POV. The main character will be the OC in the story, she is in my other story as well so most of you probably already know her. I hope you will enjoy whatever I got in story for you on this one, be sure to tell me if you like it! Small sidenote: English is not my national language, so if I make any mistakes I would appreciate it if any of you could point it out to me. However, I promise to keep them to a minimum.

Disclaimer: Fairy Tail shalt not now nor ever be owned by me.

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_It feels nice, I'm finally being appreciated. I don't think we could've gotten any luckier with the current dragon slayer. Natsu's really nice to all of us, and he cares about us too. When I look at him, that determination in his eyes just fills me with joy. We've all been through a lot, the dragon slayers we were previously with were only interested in our power. It started a long time ago, with one called Garrosh._

Deep in the mountains, a cave could be found. A warm bonfire lighted the rock walls. Close to it, a warrior was sitting on a rock. He was sharpening his blades and talking to himself.

"So, Violet. You're telling me you're a spirit that embodies the power that this purple flame has?" Garrosh raised his hand to show a violet flame rage over his palm.

"That is correct." I answered as I made my appearance in the fire before him.

"So, that would mean you know all about this power, right?" He looked skeptically at me.

"Yes, I do." I confirmed his thought.

"Then you could teach me how to use it to it's full potential." His eyes shimmered once he imagined the power he could gain, it disgusted me.

"I cannot simply bestow this power on you, you must work for it." I replied, trying to keep his excitement to a minimum.

"Fine then, if you're like that I don't need you. The other will probably be of some use." With that, he vanquished me. He decided to get rid of me because I would not immediatly give him a power boost.

_Looking back on it, I'm glad. I'm glad I was given the oppertunity to get away from him. I was worried about the others, though. It was because of Garrosh that we all got seperated. I had met them when I came into existance. I had a lot of questions but they were there for me._

"W-What is this place? It's so dark in here." I remember asking when I first opened my eyes. I was born in an empty space that was filled with blackness.

"Hey there, what's your name?" I turned my head to the direction the voice came from. I was met by the grin of a crimson flaming body. He looked like your typical male on the age of 25. Only difference would be that he wasn't made from flesh but from fire, crimson fire at that. He was enjoying a cozy fire along with a blue flaming man next to him. This one was very mascular and well-built. He seemed to be bald and had this strict facial expression.

"I-I .. I don't know." I shyly replied, I had no idea what was going on. After all, I just came to existance.

"Well, if you don't have one, we could just give you a name! Let's see, you have a nice color going right there, how do you like the sound of Violet?" The man asked me, I was happy to be recognized and immediatly nodded my head.

"Alright, fair enough. The name's Blaze, and this grump right here is Blue. We're fire spirits, just like you." He introduced himself along with the grumpy man.

"We're ... spirits?"I immediatly questioned.

"Yeah, we control the power that comes with certain flames. For example, I come along with the Crimson Flame. While this guy is from the Blue Flame" Blaze pulled the mascular man closer to him, a growl could be heard from Blue.

"Why don't you go ahead and join us?" His looked really friendly so I decided to come closer and join them by the fire.

"So, you don't really know what's going on, do you?" He turned towards me, I shook my head shyly.

"Only what you just told me."

"We, the spirits of fire, are meant to live in the minds of the fire dragon slayers." Blue started with a serious tone.

"Without them, we are nothing but a walking speck of energy. If there is no current fire dragon slayer, this is where we await him or her." He pointed at our surroundings.

"So, we're meant to aid these dragon slayers then?" I tried to grasp what he was telling me, but it proved rather difficult.

"Whether to aid or defy them is your choice, do whatever you think is right. If you think he would do wrong with your power then do not grant him your strength, return here instead and await the birth of a new fire dragon slayer." Blue explained my options.

"I see, so ... what power is it that I'm able to grant them?" I asked, I looked at my hands and saw the dim fire burning. I thought this shade looked beautiful.

_Violet_

"Judging from your looks, I'd say you have one of the darker kinds to you. It can't be the dark flame, that would be pitch black. I'd say you have a spectral flame to you. The spectres were very respected creatures. They fought by the use of deception." Blue answered my question.

"So, I can decieve people with my power?" I looked up at him from my hands.

"Most likely, I'd say you've got the ability to create illusions of yourself or become shaded from sight or such things." Blue assumed. I nodded, starting to get a little bit more comfortable around them.

"Thank you." He smiled, it looked weird to see him smile after looking at that judging face the whole time. But, it's nothing that I couldn't get used to.

_That's when I first met them. Later on, good old Sparky joined the battle. He's the spirit that compliments the lightning flame. He's quite energetic, as his name implies. The first dragon slayer we got sent to after my birth was Garrosh, I ended up walking away from him and did just as Blue said I should, I returned to my birthplace and awaited the existance of the next fire dragon slayer. There were a whole lot like Garrosh after him, just looking for power. If you couldn't give them that power, they had no use for you. I started to feel like only the flame mattered, not me. The only thing that kept me from losing my sanity and emotions were the others, Spark, Blue, Blaze. We had a lot of fun when we were all together at that place. We started to feel like humans didn't respect us, so we stopped believing in them. Spark still had high hopes to meet someone that would care for us as people rather than power, we told him that was very unlikely but that didn't stop him. I envied him, I wish I was that hopeful. Then the day came that I met him..._

"So, there's a new slayer coming huh?" Blaze was looking very relaxed.

"Yes. The current king of the fire dragons, Igneel, has found him in the forest and decided to train him." Blue replied simply.

"I guess we'll see who gets to see him first." Spark looked excited for a new fire dragon slayer. When he said that, the magic circle of fire dragon slaying magic appeared beneath me.

"Aww, I was really hoping it'd be me this time." Spark pouted. I pet him on the head and smiled him down.

"Next time, maybe." I reassured him before glowing brightly.

"Make sure to keep use a secret from him until he earns it." Blaze waved me goodbye, I nodded.

"Don't go easy on him, you can never trust those humans." Blue smirked.

"You better prepare him for my arrival, once I get there the real fun starts!" Spark cheered, I always enjoyed his excitement. Then, I was engulfed by the bright light. When I opened my eyes once more, the scene I saw before me was quite a sight to behold. A small kid, must've been 6 by then or so, was crouching and trying to force something. To me, it looked more as if he was trying to do his business rather than accomplish something. Then I saw Igneel next to him, I knew that Igneel favored the crimson flame. The kid had pink hair, looked kind of adorable. When my flame finally engulfed his fists, he looked so happy. His smiling face turned to Igneel, who smiled as well.

"So, by now, you should have another conscious with you." The dragon spoke.

"Huh? What do you mean?" The little kid looked confused.

"With a flame, comes a spirit to control it. That spirit now lives within your mind, god knows what else might be there. So, you could probably talk to him/her right now. I thought it was cute, such an unknowing kid. I saw he looked up at his own forehead.

'Spirit, are you there?' I heard an echo of his voice.

"Yes, I am here." I replied, I could hear his laughter.

"It's a she, and she's really there!" He sounded so excited, I'd say he'd even beat Sparky on that. However, I was interested the most in how he would continue treating me down the line. Right now, it seemed to be going the right way. His first question wasn't: "How powerful could she get me?" So at least that was a source of relief.

"Now, you seemed to have been blessed by her with a rather unique flame. If I remember correctly, this flame should grant you the power of deception." Igneel tried explaining him. It was funny, hearing my own story being told to someone other than myself and from someone other than Blue.

"Deception, that sounds awesome!" The kid cheered, I don't think that'll ever bore me.

"We can try her out tomorrow, for now, why don't we get some sleep?" The dragon took a deep breath before leaving for a nearby cave. The kid got a bit grumpy because of that and stubbornly remained in the grass plains. However, the cold quickly chased him down towards the warm cave.

_A lot of stuff has happened since then, mainly the disappearance of Igneel. After wandering for a long time, he had found this guild called Fairy Tail. The master seemed nice, he asked me for advice. I was happy to see that he trusted me enough. I told him that it'd be good for him to join a guild, especially one that seemed so full of energy and adventure. So, he entered. It didn't take long for him to find a rival, I was watching the fight the whole time._

"What was that, Ice princess?" Natsu's forehead crashed into Gray Fullbuster's.

"You've got ash for breath!" The ice mage replied with his counterattack.

"Say that again, droopy eyes!" Natsu gave him a nice jab.

"Not for the likes of you, flame brain!" I could tell this was going to be a nice friendship. Suddenly, an armored girl showed up and lectured them both. They were kicked out of the guild hall. It was really late so I told Natsu to go home. He had made a house in the forest, close to the city. We had been around the city for a while and Natsu told me he liked the place, so I told him to set up a home nearby. It took him a while to get it right, and he even hurt himself quite a bit in the process. But he eventually got it done, and now he returned there. He crashed into the bed, and it didn't take long for his eyes to close.

'Goodnight, Violet.' I heard, it really surrpised me too.

"Goodnight, Natsu." I answered, and he then fell asleep.

_All in all, it's a good kid. He's really handling me as a person rather than a source of power, I couldn't believe it at first. I think I might've found the one human that will treat us good. I hope the rest will come soon..._

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Thanks for spending your time on this chapter! I hope this story promises to be rather interesting for many, I'd very much appreciate your support! Now, I think I'm gonna leave it at that. I'm getting out, see ya!


	2. Chapter 2

Apologies for the late update! I got another story to keep up, ya know :/ Also, was really busy because my family's around as of right now. Yesterday got the update on the other story up, however. So no worries, tonight's the time for this story to meet it's second chapter!

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'Should I? I don't... maybe. I don't know, how would he react? I hope he'll be as cheerful as he's always been. What if he hates the fact that I don't trust him as much? Or thinks that I really look like that and despises it. Well...' I was trying to come up with reasons to either make a physical appearance before him or not. The more I thought about it, the more I pictured his smile.

'I don't think he'd so something like that...' And with that, I convinced myself to give him a less spiritual conversation with me.

"It seems I woke up earlier than him, nothing I can do about that for now. I'm not gonna scare him when he wakes up, he probably wouldn't expect anyone to be there. Huh?" I looked to the side and noticed him grumbling.

"I guess I won't have to wait for that long." I chuckled slightly at the kid's moves.

"Mmm, Violet, that you?" He looked like he had no idea what was going on, I guess that's pretty normal for someone just waking up.

"Yeah, that was me."

"It's something to get used to, having someone in your head like that." He rubbed his eyes.

"I guess it is, but not a lot of people can say the same." I cheered him up, he smiled brightly.

"You're right! I'm special, because I got you!" Something about that made me feel really warm inside.

"Heh, sure you are, but not only because of me. Everyone's special in their own way."

"Really?" He looked surprised, I think I'll have to teach Igneel about parenting later on.

"Yup, everyone's got something." He started tinkering, it looked like he was trying to force something out but he couldn't quite think of it.

"So what's so special about me then?" I smiled, he had to ask, didn't he?

"Well, let's say you're a very cheerful person that's really fun to be around. It's a lot of fun watching you trying to figure some stuff out on your own." The look on his face was all the amusement I needed at that point, by then I knew he was pretty sensitive to that kind of teasing.

"Hey, I try my best!" He looked kind of upset.

"That's all anyone could ever expect from you, don't worry, you're doing good." I really wish I could pat him on the head right now.

"Sooo... what's so special about you?" I did not see that coming.

"About me? Hmmm, why don't you try to figure that out yourself?" I grinned to his growl.

"Fine, but you'll tell me later ok?" I couldn't say no to those eyes, and I knew it would be a pretty terrible weakness to have later on.

"Fine, I will." I complied.

"But, how old are you? I don't really know what you look like, so I can't really tell."

"Hm, been a while. Let's see, I've lived through 4 generations so that's about 160 years old." It was probably a bit more or less, but I'm not that accurate.

"WOAH, that's REALLY old!" I felt slightly ticked off at that.

"Hey, I'm still in good shape!" I yelled at him.

"Well, I can't really know that, can I?" I guess he was right about that.

"Anyways, so what're we doing today?" He got up from his bed.

"You're part of Fairy Tail, you can just go there and earn some money. There's probably plenty of exciting jobs to do around there!" I suggested, he seemed to have some determination in his eyes when he held his fists up.

"Yeah, let's have some fun!" He jumped, it looked really cute. Later on, he stood before the Fairy Tail guild hall.

"I still owe Gray a punch to the face for yesterday!" I couldn't help but think of Sparky at that one, the little guy would always get overhyped for a small conflict. When he entered, not many seemed to mind him. Most people were just drinking or talking to others. The smaller onces were in their seperate corner of the large hall. There was the scarlet-haired armored one again, as well as Gray. Then there was this group of 3 white-haired kids. There was a punky one dressed in black mostly. There was a smaller one which looked utterly adorable with her dress. Then there was this boy who seemed rather shy. I could tell from here that there was a healthy rivalry going on.

"It was you, wasn't it? I knew you stole my cheesecake, you midriff baring bastard!" Ehm, it's just cheesecake?

"I'm telling you I don't care, clanky bastard!" Holy, they look pretty serious. And now they're clashing, face to face.

"You bony bastard!"

"You prickly bastard!" Seriously, who taught these kids?

"And then she told US not to fight..." Natsu was staring at her with a rather numb expression, it was pretty hilarious to see him like that.

"I guess you can't control yourself before your rival, I'm sure you can agree..." I didn't get an answer, Natsu had already left to fight with Gray. It kinda left me dumbfounded.

"Gray, I still owe you for yesterday!" When the kid turned around he recieved Natsu's fist to his teeth, must say, that was kinda dirty. The black-haired one had his fist ready to swing, but stopped suddenly. Even Natsu was frozen in place. I wondered what got into them, until I looked to their side. Damn those two women could glare like no other.

"Didn't Erza tell you not to fight?" So I'm assuming the red head is Erza.

"Mira-neesan, please don't hurt them!" The smaller girl yelled, so then the other one's Mira.

"That's right, I forgot about your crush on the puny brains right here." She poked Natsu's forehead, which made him lose his balance and fell to the ground. That maniacal laugh of hers made it so much worse, I wanted to punch her right there and then.

"Natsu, why are you letting yourself get pushed around like that?"

'Because she's freaking scary!' Oh god, I facepalmed.

"We need to talk later, for now, just grab a mission and leave." He gulped before finally moving again. Those girls wouldn't stop staring him down, watching every single one of his moves. Hate to admit, but even I'd get nervous becaues of that.

'What do I take?'

"Whatever you want, as long as you think you can handle it." Knowing him, he'd surely pick the most dangerous one of them all and end up in the hospital or something.

'How about this?' I checked to see what he was holding. A mission that was closeby, eliminating a pack of wild wolves.

"Sure, if you bring someone along." He grunted after that, but he knew I was serious about these kinds of things. Natsu slowly walked over the small girl next to Mira.

"Oi, Lisanna, would you mind going on this mission with me." I don't think I've seen a happier face in ... like ever. She accepted so fast I could barely blink. Natsu seemed relieved to be away from the place, and to be honest, so was I. Those two girls gave me the creeps, but Natsu was straight up terrified of them.

"So what's this mission about?" What? She didn't even check the mission?

"We're supposed to eliminate a wolf pack nearby."

"Ah, alright then. I'll do my best!" That smile of hers really warmed me up inside.

"So, Natsu. You've never asked me out on a mission before, and no one really knows where you train. I don't actually know how you fight." Ah yes, that's pretty important if you're working as a team.

"Oh, right. Well, you know I'm a fire mage. I don't really use the normal kind of fire, though. I got this awesome flame, sh-it's really cool!" I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud, I wonder how long it'd be until Natsu would give me away.

"So.. What does it do, then?" Yeah, 'awesome' doesn't suffice, Natsu.

"Well, it's not based on direct combat. I can't really do that much, because it requires a lot of magic energy. But I'm able to create illusions of myself. If I was stronger, I could make physical copies that could fight with me. And I'm sure there's a lot more, but you know, I can't do it yet." He looked a bit sad, it kinda makes me feel bad.

"Natsu, you'll get strong enough, I know you will." He looks up again with a smile, ironically enough Lisanna had told him the exact same thing.

"Thanks, now let's go round up that wolf pack. I guess the best way to go about this as we are now is to lure them into a trap." I'm glad he didn't plan on charging into combat.

"I could dig a hole that could easily hold 10!" Really? How does she plan on doing that? Is she an earth mage?

"Great! I'll be the bait, let's hurry and set it all up!" Natsu picked up his pace until they were running. The wolves would only come out at night, so they had all day to set it up. Ok, we finally got here. Let's see what this girl's plan is.

"Lisanna." Natsu qeued. She nodded.

"Animal Soul: Rabbit!" Ah, a take over mage. Yup, now I see. A giant purple rabbit surely could dig a hole that deep. Wait, she's already done?

"Good job!" Natsu praised her, I think I sensed a tint of pink on her cheeks. They were now covering it up with branches and leaves. As long as Natsu gets them all after him, it should be easy to trap them. So, the waiting game began. We were pretty lucky we left pretty late because the Lisa girl still wanted to grab something from her home. I could hear the howling already.

"Alright, time for me to do my part of the plan." Natsu stood up. Didn't think I'd hear him say that until at least a while later. So with that, he ran off. I'm kind of scared to see him wandering in the dark all by himself, but I know he can easily get out if something dangerous were to pop up. I wish he could just get an illusion to do all of it, but he can't maintain it for that long. At least he's being careful, checking his surroundings every so often. The sound of a growl alerts the both of us.

"Natsu, I think it's time to run." He's slowly moving backwards. We were told that there were 7 wolves, and that's exactly how many jumped out of the bushes right there. Natsu immediatly sprinted away from them towards Lisanna. It's quite a while away, but Natsu could run pretty fast for his size. Now that we're close enough, Natsu jumps up and gets on a treebranch that was pretty safe. The wolves are grouping up beneath him but they can't get to him. It's time to work my magic, Natsu's meditating to preserve his magic as much as he can. He stretches his hand out, small embers drop from his hand onto the branch. They join together to form my flame. The violet fire creates a copy of Natsu.

I was relieved to see he had made it, it would all be easy from now on. The illusion leaps away and draws the attention of the wolves while Natsu remains on the tree, preserving his magic. We heard the sound of the trap falling apar, so Natsu set off. He arrives at the scene to see the wolves all trapped in the hole.

"Yeah, we did it!" He high-fives the girl. When Natsu isn't being really silly, he's really cute. I guess it's time to go turn the request in then. So Natsu and Lissanna walk off to inform the client that the wolves have been dealt with. The pay seems pretty decent for a low-risk job like this. Of course, Lisanna gets half of the reward. Now Natsu's walking homewards.

"That went pretty smooth." I chuckled.

"Then I was more worried than you were."

"Of course, you always are." I had to give him that, he was as reckless as ever.

"I think that's a trend that'll remain for a long time."

"Yup." He brings his hands behind his head and looks up to the sky. I wish I could walk under those stars myself.

"Violet." I wake up from my train of thought.

"Yeah?"

"Since you're all locked up in my head and all, don't you sometimes wish you could walk around on your own and be independant?" I thought I was in his mind, now he looks like he's reading mine.

"Yeah, I do." He's looking down now, always means he's thinking about something.

"Is there really no way you can do it?"

"Well, no way I can stay far away from you or have my real form. I think I can materliaze, just not as something big."

"Really? C'mon, try it!" Boy, could he be cheerful.

"Alright, here goes." I don't know what I'd be, but all I need right now is to be there. So I give it my best shot, trying to force me in front of him. I open my eyes and meet his cheerful smile.

"That's REALLY small, but it works."

"Wait, it worked?!" I couldn't believe it at first, after all, my magic container is as large as the host's is.

"Yeah."

"I can't be large, I can't even see myself. What am I even?" It's honestly irritating me that I keep spinning and can't see anything of my own body.

"A violet ember."

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Alright, so if you look at the start and the ending of the chapter, there's probably a major difference there. Mid-way I kinda realized that I want to write in present tense, and that's gonna be something to get used to. Again, first time doing first-person POV. At least I'm trying to improve! So I hope that Violet is now a bit more human than she was last chapter. Thanks for reading, I'm signing out!


	3. Chapter 3

*Phew* I hope I'll get this done by today, I'm really keen on getting chapters out on the set day I want them to be released. So yeah, today I updated my other story, now it's this one again, and tomorrow will be nothing. Let's get to writin' then!

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_That's when we had our first physical contact, it was a lot of struggling to move around in that form at first, but I managed. Lots of time passed since then. Natsu grown a lot, and with that, I myself have too. Since our magical containers are linked, and his has gotten bigger, I could now physically shape myself near the size of what I really am. Natsu's a teenager now, no longer a kid. I practically raised him, taught him all sorts of things. I don't know if there's a single thing he fears now, since even Erza and Mira won't. Speaking of her, there's been a tragic event with her sister. It got Natsu pretty bad too, but I was able to talk him through. He helped the girl move on too, which relieved me. Today, he's the compassionate, caring, strong, 17 year old man he's become over the years._

"Ugh, that sure took a while." It really was a tiring mission, we've been away for a week.

"But the pay made up for it. You haven't told me what you're saving up for yet." He has this big stash of jewels piled away, and I don't know what he wants to do with it.

"Can't someone just save up for when they really need money?" He says that, but I know that not-so-innocent smile of his. He was planning something, I just don't know what.

"Can't someone suspect a person who's proven to be terrible with money before?" It sure is fun to tease Natsu like this, I'd pay for that look of his when he's cornered.

"N-No, you can't!"

"Oh, really? I guess that's too bad then, go right ahead. Choo choo." I wave him off, it was funny.

"Wait, this is my house!" Glad he remembered, except not really.

"You wouldn't have this house if it weren't for me. In fact, where the hell would you be right now if you didn't have me?" He's gone through his entire life with me by his side, god knows where he would've gone without me around.

"Who knows?" He raises his shoulders, guess it really was a question to be left unanswered.

"Well, anyways, the guild seems to think it's weird you always do missions solo since you're always so lively around everyone." They always asked, and he had always turned them down unless it was a special occasion.

"That's because I wouldn't be able to talk to you." As much as I liked hearing that, he had to be around other people too.

"Why wouldn't you? You could still think to me, and I'd talk back."

"It just wouldn't be the same."

"C'mon, it'd be good for you" I said it in THE voice, it was that voice that always got anything done from him.

"Ugh.. Fine, the next mission I do, I'll invite others to do with me." He gives in, told ya he couldn't resist it.

"Good, I'll still be with you whenever you need me."

"I know you will, you always are." Damn it, I guess there's my weakness presented to you. Those eyes, whenever he talked like that he'd pull those eyes. It's probably best for me to just look away. I hear him smirking as I turn, seems like he got what he wanted.

"I guess I'll check if Erza's group would be up for it." He walked off, I guess it was time for me to nestle in his mind again. It sounds weird, but that's essentially what's happening. So watching him from up here again, Natsu's walking towards the guild. Once he arrives, he dodges a table crashing towards him. I guess that's Fairy Tail for ya. Natsu didn't immediatly find the group he was looking for, the giant brawl kind of blocked a lot of your vision.

"Yo, Erza!" Natsu seems to have found her.

"Oh, Natsu, what is it?" As stern as always, I see.

"I was wondering if you and the others wanted to go on a mission with me."

"A mission? With you? Why would you want to so suddenly? I mean, you never do missions with us." They were like ... REALLY surprised by his offer.

"I thought it'd be good for me, so ... you wanna?" And by 'me' he means me.

"S-Sure, you can pick whichever you want, I'll fetch Gray." Ouch, I pity the ice mage already. No one wanted to be 'fetched' by Erza.

'So, which one will it be?' I looked at the request board with narrowed eyes.

"I'd say the upper right one." After staring at it for a while, he finally nods in approval and takes the request.

"Yo, whaddaya think about this one?" He shouts to the others. Erza sure likes knowing the details, not a single letter remains unread by her.

"I approve." You know, you're arround friends, no need to be so formal...

"Sounds like fun." Oh yeah, what's that blonde chick called again? Lucy, I think it was. She sounds nice enough to me, I don't like the way she dresses though.

"Why the heck not?" And of course there's Gray, Natsu's ever so spiteful rival.

"Great, how long would you guys need to pack?" Neither of us had any clue how long others would take over this, we'd usually just take what we need and run for it.

"I'm cool within an hour."

"You're always cool, ice princess." You know, that can be taken as both a compliment as well as an insult. Obviously, Gray doesn't want to look at it that way though.

"What'd you say to me?"

"Guys..." There was that menacing voice of hers. Gray got smacked to the ground, while Erza's fist merely made Natsu's head disperse in my flames around it.

"Damn it, where's the real one?" Good thing I was around to control the illusion.

"Natsu's packing, I guess I'll make us all leave by the dawn of tomorrow. We'll meet up in front of the guild at 8AM." And with that, it dispersed completely. Moving back to Natsu, I found him napping on his bed. He had packed, probably has done some training too. Sometimes I wonder how he doesn't tire himself out more often than these few times. I guess I should get some sleep too. That night, I dreamt about the others again. I don't want to tell Natsu about them, because I promised not to. I'm gonna make sure that Natsu will be ready for them, and they'll like him just as much as I do! But right now, let's focus at the task at hand. Natsu was waiting in front of the guild hall for his teammates. I saw the first on arriving already.

"Are you sure you wanna bring all that stuff with you?" Natsu, and even I, sweatdropped at the ammount of luggage she brought along. That wasn't just luggage, it was a mountain of unnecessary goods.

"I'm not coming without any of this!" I guess she treasures all of it, sort of. Come to think of it, what was the job about again? Oh yeah, they gotta get some valuable ores and herbs that can be found in and on top of one of the mountains nearby. Oh, seems like the others already arrived.

"Alright, let's get going." Natsu was already making his way out of Magnolia. The others had trouble keeping up.

'Natsu, you should probably slow down...' He turns and chuckles when he sees the others struggling.

"Oh, right, sorry." They all glared a bit at him before laughing it off themselves.

"So, Natsu, didn't you ever get lonely before?" This Lucy girl asks him all of a sudden.

"No, I don't."

"Why not?"

"That's ... kinda hard to explain." He obviously wants to avoid the subject, I hope they understand.

"Alright then, well how do you usually do missions?" The type that asks many questions, eh? She's already irritating me.

"Huh, what do you mean?" I'm kinda confused as well, Natsu.

"Like, do you continue working at night? We usually camp up."

"Depends on what I'm feeling like, of course. I'll only camp when it's necessary." I remembered the nights that he and I spent under the stars, I don't think I've ever felt more at peace.

"But if you guys wanna camp up, we can do that."

"First we gotta get through the day, up your pace!" I guess there's someone to keep the pressure up.

"Hai, hai!" Natsu follows her right up the hill. And then we're met by the beautiful sight of the mountain tops. The first mounting of these was Mt. Hakoba.

"I wanna be at least midway Hakoba!" That's demanding a lot, isn't it? I guess it's a POSSIBLE stretchgoal.

"But... Erza!" The blonde chick pouts, it's funny when people do that.

"Quit whining, we both know there's no convincing Erza." Gray seems to have some sense to him after all. But we were already mid-day, and the women were starting to feel the chill of the mountain.

"I h-h-hate how you two are w-w-w-w-walking around with your naked t-t-t-t-torsos without even b-being bothered by the c-c-cold." Oh look at that, poor girl's suffering from teeth chattering.

"Ice mage - Fire mage. Cold isn't that big of a deal." Natsu slowly shifts his index finger from pointing at Gray to pointing at him, the look on his face was quite amusing as well.

"Yeah, yeah."

"This is no time to slack off, keep up the pace!" And there's the dominant one again. As much as I think it's fine to relax, the mist could conceil any incoming attacks. If we're not on high alert, we'll probably be caught off-... Well, kinda like that. Damn it, why'd that woman have to be such an easy target. And there she goes, that Vulcan just snatched her like it was nothing.

"Crap!" The ice mage gave the first reaction, surprisingly.

"Lucy!"

"After her, quickly!" It's kind of hard to follow a Mountain Vulcan in a snow storm, but they seemed pretty determant. So they're now rushing up the mountain, pursuin a Vulcan. Hold on, this cave might house him.

'Natsu, just to your left is a cave that I think might belong to that Vulcan.' Natsu immediatly turned behind him and shouted for the others to follow, luckily they didn't question. He found the cave with ease.

"You two, stay here until I tell you to come in." Natsu tells Gray and Erza.

"What? Why?" The ice mage had to retort immediatly, I guess asking to comply with Natsu's request is just too much for him.

"Because, I can get in there without getting noticed. If I can take him out quick and easy, we avoid the risk of brining harm to Lucy." It's moments like these where I think back at that little reckless kid that would always want to charge into battle. But after getting familiar with my powers, Natsu has gotten used to handle battles in a more strategic manner.

"I guess you're right." So, he gave in to reason. Natsu enters the cave, with my flame blessing his feet with silence. He slowly sneaks deeper into the darkness, until a light meets his eyes. When he turns the corner, we see the Vulcan with Lucy close to him.

"Alright Natsu, just take it slow."

'I've done this before, thank you very much.' Jeez, no need to be so snobby about it. So Natsu slowly closes in on the Vulcan after motioning to Lucy to be quiet. Just before Natsu was about to deal a swift blow to the Vulcan's neck, the beast smelled the air. Natsu thought quickly and made a flame copy to snatch Lucy before him. The Vulcan turns his head left to look at where it went, and during that time, Natsu delivers a quick blow to the beast's temples. It falls flat to the ground, making Natsu sigh in relief.

"You can come!" The other two swiftly folllow.

"Glad you're safe, Lucy!" LIke you did anything, ice mage.

"Good job, Natsu." At least she knows who did all the work.

"Yeah, thanks, I owe you one." She better.

"It's no problem, but hey, it's getting late. Maybe we should camp in this cave." That sounds like a decent suggestion.

"Agreed, this cave will-"

"Guys, the Vulcan't transforming!" Wait, what?

"Wait... Is that.. Macao?" Natsu looks closer and seems to recognize him. Wait, I see it, yeah it's that old pervert who drinks all the time.

"He must've gotten overtaken by one of those Vulcans, he got pretty lucky we were around." He sure did, he could've been stuck up here for years.

"In any case, let's just rest." And so, they set up for the night. Natsu couldn't sleep, though. So he just went to sit at the exit of the cave and stare at the stars while talking to me.

"It's kinda weird, having to look after others."

"I guess, but I was really happy watching you do all that. It made me feel slightly nostalgic, thinking back at how you've grown up."

"Thanks, mom." Oh, you did not just do that.

"I don't look old enough to be a mother in the least!"

"But you are, aren't you?" Damn it, he's smirking because he knows he's right.

"I guess, technically."

"I'm sure I'll get to see what you're really like someday. I mean, your appearance has changed a lot since when we first met."

"That's only because you've grown so much."

"So if I continue to get stronger, you can eventually show your real self."

"Yeah, eventually." You can't say that he didn't sprankle hope around anywhere he went. Whenever I lose faith in the possibility, he just says stuff like that with such setermination that it warms me up. I guess that's Natsu for ya, glad I met him I am. Hm? Look at that, seems like the blonde's got up and eavesdropped on him. Should I tell Natsu? ... Nah, let's see how this plays out.

* * *

Alright, for those who haven't noticed yet, I dislike Lucy. So I didn't really know what I would make happen and I don't intend to go follow canon on this one, but I thought it'd be okay if I chain some small canon events together with what's going on just like this. So hey, they're older now. I don't think there'll be much timeskips anymore, since they're at the age they're supposed to be. So next chapter we'll see how the group reacts to Natsu's nightly wandering and how the mission ends (I don't even know myself yet) So uh, hope y'all are looking forward to that!


	4. Chapter 4

So I took a little break for a bit. It's the end of the vacation, I can chill a bit if I want to!. So let's see what happens this chapter. I've been getting a few questions and you gotta understand that I improvise all, nothing is planned. Also have been told that maybe I should try to go about Natsu's POV as well, I don't know for sure yet. I might do it, be sure to give me your opinion on the matter. That being said, let's start improvising!

* * *

He didn't catch too much sleep, but it doesn't seem to bother Natsu all that much. Right now they're all just making their way past this mountain. This morning, they decided it'd be best for the Lucy girl to get the male wizard back to the guild. Before she got out of sight though, she took another glance at Natsu. She must've been thinking about yesterday. Natsu's been tinkering all morning, and even though I'm in his mind, I can't tell what about. Seems like his companions have caught on as well.

"Yo, what's up?" I guess he couldn't be any more casual about it.

"Hm? Oh, sorry. I just got lost in thought." That's not the answer we're hoping for, Natsu.

"Yeah, so much we noticed. So what was it you were thinking about?"

"Nothing you should be bothered with." So he really doesn't wanna let it out. If it's that serious, it might be that he knew about the girl from yesterday. After all, he's got pretty sensitive hearing and all that. Gray's gritting his teeth in frustration, quite the sight to behold. Oh wait, he's calming down...

"Hey, we're partners right now. What bothers you, bothers me too." Holy... I didn't know something mature could actually come out of that hold in his face. The rest seems surprised as well.

"He's right, Natsu. We can't afford to have you distracted during a mission." And there she was with the reasoning.

"Ugh, I guess I can't leave it at that. I'll might tell you guys later, but I really can't right now... Thanks, by the way." And so he pats Gray's shoulder, that step he just made is actually a really big deal. And of course, Natsu's willing to go in on it. They might even... be friends? Holy crap, who would've thought? As time passes on, they finally made it to the next mountain.

"So we gotta be around here for this ore, right?" If I remember correctly, they're looking for Tenebrium. It's a very useful ore that can be used to create arcane tools, but very dangerous to craft with. It's only any good to the people that specialize in it.

"Affirmative." When will that woman learn that this isn't the god damned military?

"The client told us that it's usually found near the top. I say we walk this path until a decent altitude to look around for the ore before we head downwards to the bottom of the mountain for the herbs." The herbs were in the middle of this mountain area. Looking from here, there were a lot of trees and many small ponds down there. Good thing it was only this cold up here.

"Alright, let's go then." And then they walked. The snow storm got heavier the higher they went, it's when they felt like the storm got too heavy that the dicision was made to start looking for the ore.

"So what exactly are we looking for?"

"Tenebrium is a very dark purple in color, and extremely solid as well. It tends to grow right on top of surfaces, so that's why there's no professional required to really go get the stuff. Most miners can't come up here because of the nature of this area, so that's why we're here." Good thing Natsu took note of what that request giver told them.

"And by nature you mean the temperature?"

"The temperature's not all, there's also a lo-" ... A lot of stuff that howls like that? What's coming from the mountain peak? It's a human? A wolf? Both?

"What the..."

"A Fenrir, father of all wolves." You're telling me that giant wolf-thing is a Fenrir? Those things are too rare for these parts!

"Na-" You're a tad late, Erza. Natsu's already gone.

"Gray, I want you to follow up on me. This thing's used to the cold environment so I want to see how well it can deal with physical attacks before you do anything at all. Make sure to adapt!" So her plan is to charge into the thing? It can literally chomp her sword down to the hilt! There she goes, I guess she doesn't care. She swings, it's opening it's mouth. I told you the blade fits entirely in there! Wait, what's she doing? Just before the beast closed it's mouth, she ex-quipped her sword into her other hand and punctured it's right eye! Damn, that's a neat skill. After that, the beast obviously wants to back. Gray's ice wall wouldn't let it, though. It's closing it's eyes, probably trying to focus on scent rather than sight. Wow, it was pretty fast to turn around and deliver a really heavy blow to Natsu. She I guess we can't really stay hidden from it. Natsu's looking pretty bad too, surely must've shaken him up a bit too bad.

"Natsu, can you still fight?"

"I'm fine, just get me an opening!" As long as we get close, Natsu can get the thing down.

"Gray, I'm counting on you to keep it down!" And there she goes again. This time, the beast seems to avoid the blade at all cost. Ducking down and butting his head into her chest did knock Erza backwards a lot. The wolf was diving on top of her, luckily Gray managed to protect her with an ice shield. The wolf clashes with the wall of ice until Natsu interrupts. He punches the beast aside.

"Ice Make: Saucer!" Gray send this sharp ice disc flying at the giant wolf. The thing noticed it and leapt aside into Natsu's fist once more. They wouldn't give it a break, Erza jumps at it again. I'm guessing the Fenrir realized he couldn't win, so he fled by jumping over the ice wall that Gray's own saucer had cut down.

"I guess we won't have to worry about him anymore. Erza, Natsu, you ok?"

"Yeah, we're not that hurt, just took a few blows to the chest. It'll pass in a bit."

"Alright, so we better start looking."

"I'm on it." Natsu sounds quite confident whenever he says that, usually he earns that confidence. Right now he sits down in a meditating position to reserve as much magic energy as he can. Out of every one of his sides are bursting flame copies of himself, running off to scout the area.

"We should find some of that ore pretty fast with this." Yeah, having like five times yourself looking around usually helps a lot in those situations. So, of course, it doesn't take too long before some of the ore's found. Gray could create some solid pickaxes for all of them. The mining wasn't too difficult, the ore was really close to the surface. There was more than the client requested, but they took it nonetheless. So, now it was time to go fetch those herbs down the mountain.

"What kind of stuff is it that we need now?" Natsu took out his small notes again.

"Apparently, it's Nightshade. As the name suggests, it's pitch black. So it blends in at night, but stands out during the day."

"I guess we better move before the sun sets then." Natsu seems to pick up some sound and checks behind them as they exit the cave.

"Uhm, guys..."

"What?" Erza and Gray turn around and see the dozen of Fenrirs staring them down.

"I-uh... I think it's time to run."

"Last one down's dead meat!" Natsu leaps off the path, sliding down the snow. You'd think he'd be scared to death of what he just saw, but he seems to be enjoying this. Strange boy, he is. Erza and Gray can't exactly stick around so they follow him down. The decent itself looks quite fun, to be honest. I can see why they're screaming that loud, but they might wanna watch it... Nevermind, too late. There's already a giant avalanche chasing them down. They seem to notice it as they stand up. Natsu's now using fire as thrusters, while Gray is surfing on the ice that he creates before his feet. Erza's now in a skimpier armor set that definitely improves her speed. It took quite a while, but they finally reached the bottom of the mountain and managed to outrun the avalanche. Good thing the town is on the other side of the other mountain, otherwise we might've been in trouble.

"That was a lot more fun than I thought it'd be." And so it seemed, Natsu.

"Yeah, but we should really move. That plant isn't gonna be that visible after dusk. Think you can pull your trick again?" Gray turns towards a shaking Natsu. I guess he was kinda dry after all that.

"I'm out, man. it's gonna be regular searching from here on out." Ah, doing some effort isn't bad for you, now is it?

"Let's get going then." Miss Cut-to-the-chase said so! It took an hour before the sun started dropping, they grouped up again around a pond.

"I guess we're not finding it today... Let's set up camp around here." We're finally settling down? Phew.

* * *

Even tonight, I couldn't sleep. Right now, I'm sittting next to the pond. Talking to Violet, as I always do..

"You're sure you're not hurt, right?"

"Yes, I've told you many times by now, I'm fine."

"That blow looked pretty heavy though."

"It's just the kind that dazes you for a bit, but nothing more." There were these times where she'd worry too much, though I didn't mind that much.

"At least this area looks a bit safer, I hope we won't have to fight the same kind of thing, if anything at all."

"I wouldn't mind seeing those kind of creatures, they're pretty interesting."

"So you wanna see those things again?"

"Not exactly, there's little I really want to see."

"Like?"

"You." She silently laughs. I don't know why, but her laughing makes me happier than usual. It kinda fills me up inside with a warmth. It's not the usual warmth that I'm used to, it's different.

"Bend over, make sure to stretch out forward as much as you can."

"Huh? Why?"

"Just do it." I guess I'm not gonna question her, so I do it. My head's now above the water surface.

"Look down." I lower my gaze, and was met by a pair of Violet eyes. It surprised me a lot, but I'm guessing that's a reflection of what Violet looks like.

"You can stop staring now." Damn it. Oughta watch what I do.

"Sorry, you look far better than I imagined." Now she's looking away, is that blushing? I was only being honest. I had known what she sort of looked like, but now I knew her exact face and hairstyle, her eyes, everything.

"Thanks, I'm really happy to hear that." I've never seen her like this, is she shy?

"Am I the first one who gets to see you like this?"

"The first human, yes."

"Oh, right. So no other ever got that far with you?"

"What do you mean by that?" Oh, crap. She seems offended, what'd I say? Better clear it up.

"Did no one ever keep you around long enough for that?" Phew, she seems to relax now, but a bit sad as well.

"No, I never wanted any of them to know what I looked like. But you're different from them, and I'm happy that you are."

"My pleasure!" I'm grinning down at her. Whenever I really smile at her, she seems to lighten up immediatly. She chuckled as well, this time I could actually see her do it. Her smile felt good to me, it felt like I did something good, something I want to do. Something, I want to keep doing.

* * *

So I ended up adding a little bit of Natsu POV at the end right there. I used it only to get some of his emotions out there. Tell me if it was good like this, or maybe you'd like to have it more back and forth during the actual chapter? Be sure to inform me!


	5. Chapter 5

Had no internet for the past week, sad face. Got into school, probably will get a lot busier over time. I'll definitely upload once a week and try to go for a second chapter when I can. So I definitely get a lot of positive responses from people on this story, thank you all for those! I guess I'll be moving forward with this mission and see what I can do afterwards. Hope you guys don't mind my schedule too much, I'll definitely do my best!

* * *

"Damn it, Natsu. Keep your arm to yourself!" The screams woke both me and Erza up. Gray and Natsu were sleeping next to each other, and this was the result. I guess we'll definitely have enough time now that everybody's up so early. Of course, Natsu had to be woken up in the violent matter Erza was accustomed to.

"Ouch, damn it! Why can't you ever wake people up in a normal way?" Maybe one should try to follow his own advice, oh mighty dragon slayer.

"Look who's talking, you're the one who got us all up in the first place." Well... Technically, it was you, fine sir. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, you can thank me later.

"Enough, this matter is irrelevant as of right now. We need to get ready and start moving. I don't want to be forced to spend yet another night around these parts." And as we all know: When the lady wants something, she gets something. Usually the men don't understand and give her the wrong something, though. Hint hint, Natsu. Men should really try to understand us better. Whoops, got a little off-topic there. Well, better keep Erza from going all grumpy. Nobody wants that, right?

"I think we can afford to stick together at this point, it'll save us the trouble of having to group up later." Aww, less time for Natsu to talk. Sad face, why Erza gotta be such a spoilsport? I guess if she doesn't even know of my existance it doesn't really count. *Sigh*

'Hey, how you holding out up there?' Oh, speak of the devil.

"I'm fine, you woke me up with your little 'morning exercise'. It was a sight to behold." He's looking down with a little shy smile now, not what I'd usually expect from his eneretic self.

'If you really enjoyed it, I could do it more often.' Was he seriously offering that? He's joking, right?

"You know I was kidding, right?"

'Uh, Y-Yeah, of course I do!' Did he just stutter? Natsu stuttered... because of me? This is one for the history books, I need to contact the media about this!

"Natsu, are you okay? You seem kind of absent." And then the boss calls him back to the land of the living.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine."

"Alright, just make sure you won't fall behind." And with that, she just turns away from him. I guess I shouldn't bother him while he's on the job, but it's so boring otherwise! I guess I'll just sit here and watch him a bit more... Doing a lot of this... Watching, certainly makes you become a lot more aware of that person. I don't mind all that much, it interests me even. If I'd want to watch anything, it'd be Natsu. Of course it would be, I'm proud of what he's become. I'm happy he is who he is, and who he's grown to be. It's always the feeling I'd get when I sit here like this, it's kind of nostalgic.

"We've reached the end of the area, we oughta turn back and see what we can find on the other side." A suggestion coming out from a male party member, such a rare occurance.

"Gray's right, we can take a break and turn back." Ooh, 2 versus 1. Even Erza can't oppose that, not that she should. At least ... I don't think so. She's slowly turning... OH GOD!

"You'll keep walking until your feet bleed..." That face, that voice. I don't think there's anything scarier! The boys didn't take it lightly either, look at them all curled up.

"Just kidding." ...What? She just gave us all heart attacks!

"Right, well, let's just get moving then." Good one Natsu, just change the subject. Have no fear, just walk away!

"Very well." It's weird, I feel something strange coming from that mountain. Either I'm just trippin', or there's something suspicious going on up there. But it's nothing I should be concerned about, we're not going there. They're all just making their way back, just passed the camp from this morning. They're just checking their surroundings before moving on.

"Never seen anything like this one before... WOAH!" Did... Natsu just get swallowed by that giant plant? Ehm... Yeah.

"Natsu!" Hurry up, you guys! There go gray's ice blades. Heck yeah, cut that thing down to the root! And of course, Natsu has to fly out of there in a giant blazing wave of fire. My fire, at that. Always feels weird thinking about it that way. Damn it, I guess a graceful landing was too much to ask from him. His face is the first thing to meet the ground. He opens his eyes to the water surface, standing up slowly.

"Guys, I think I got it!" Natsu's holding a pitch-black flower in his hand with many thorns... on the leaves? I didn't know that was a thing. The side of the leaves were filled with solid thorns, and the leaves themselves weren't that fragile either. Strange thing, that Nightshade. Natsu's looking off to his left, smiling even. Oh, it's the pond where we were sitting yesterday. Is he... Is he thinking about what I looked like? Is he laughing because I looked funny? I didn't look bad... did I?

"The Nightshade, you got it!" And Gray's there to pull him back down to Earthland.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I got it. It was on the edge of this pond."

"What were you thinking about, just now?" Why must Erza always know everything?

"Just... A good memory." Good? So it wasn't a funny one, right? He seems happy enough, phew.

"I guess I shouldn't pry on it, let's just get back to the guild."

"Yeah, I'm sure Lucy's eager to know how it went." Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that woman. Why's Gray the one to bring her up? I'd expect Erza, but he doesn't seem to care all that much about anyone. I guess I shouldn't try to look for too much with just that little, it'll just be a waste of time. Speaking of time, they saved a lot in the return. There was an exit of this little valley in between two mountains, a small path. It sure as hell made the trip a lot shorter. So now they made it back to the guild.

"Oh, hey, how'd it go?" And there's the blonde lady with the questions.

"We've got it all. Some giant wolves at some points, nothing we couldn't handle." Yes, Gray, that's EXACTLY how it went.

"You mean, nothing we couldn't run from?" See, now THAT's how it went. Gray's looking angry now. Natsu doesn't mind, he just ignores it and pats him on the back. I gotta hand it to him, getting Gray mad is kinda fun.

"Anyways, I'm goi-" Woah, what's going on? The ground's shaking! Everybody's tripping. Phew, it stopped.

"What the hell was that?"

"An earthquake, just like that?" Now all of them are running outside to see what happened. Nothing seems to have changed, it just scared a few people.

"Doesn't seem to have caused any damage. Well, I'm going home guys!" Natsu's leaving the guild now. That's weird, something like that usually doesn't happen. It's a first for me, at least.

* * *

_Natsu's POV_

That was pretty weird, but I guess we shouldn't be worrying about it too much. I'll just get home and eat some fish or something, I must still have some stored away somewhere.

"You sure everything's alright?" There she goes again with the worrying.

"Everything fine in town, we'll just check up on the house and see if that's fine too. Nothing happened to anyone, so we got nothing to worry about."

"I guess you're right. You always seem so certain."

"That's because I am, I don't know of anything that should cause us worry." Just a little shaking of the ground is enough to get people scared these days, I guess.

"I didn't mean it in a bad way, it's actually really nice to have someone like that around. It's really nice to have YOU around." That's... unexpected.

"heh, thanks... But you've got no choice but to be around me, you're forced to." She never really got to choose anything, did she? From the moment she was born she just had to go with whatever was planned for her, that's pretty sad. But at least she seems pretty happy now.

"Even so, if I had just gotten to know you under other circumstances, I'd be around you all the time regardless." She really wants to send me that message, huh?

"I could say the same." She turned quiet for a bit.

"Oh, so you're that self-secure that you'd say that in front of a lady!" Oh shit, I messed up.

"Hey, I didn't mean it like that and you know it!" And now she's laughing, phew, she was just toying with me. Wait... She was toying with me, damn it!

"I know, I know. Hey, what's that over there?" Was almost reached the house, but ... something's off. I'm seeing something in the distance, I don't know what is it though.

"Let's check it out." I could hear she wasn't really up for it.

"What, are you crazy? We've got no idea what it is, and with that earthquake just now we can expect anything!"

"Isn't that just what makes it so exciting?"

"Fine, have it your way." I knew I could find her with just a little adventure, she's not that boring of a person. I know she's just looking out for me, as tough of a job that is. Running past many trees, the structure's getting in sight. It's a white ... pyramid-like thing. Really small, more like a futuristic shrine or something.

"Never seen something like that before." Same here, I'm slowly walking towards it. On the inside, the room was entirely white. There was a pillar in the center, encasing a blue gem of some sort.

"Natsu!" Huh? Crap, I can't move anymore! The hell's going on? The gem's lighting up. Wha-What's it doing? What's happening to me? I feel, I'm being ... drained? Violet's fire is being dragged from me into the crystal.

"Violet! Violet?!" Crap, she's not responding!

* * *

_Violet's POV_

Everything went black. There was a blue light, then everything faded. I heard someone calling my name, but I can't recognize the voice. It's too far away, but it's closing in. It's.. It's Natsu! Where is he? I can't see anything. I keep falling, I don't know where I'm going. Umpf, did I reach the ground. I'm opening my eyes, there's a room that's completely white. White? I'm supposed to be surrounded by black, not white. I'm also not alone, someone's here? I'm looking before me, my eyes are going up his body.

"NATSU!"

* * *

Look at that, I call it solid! Well, I don't know why I did it this way, I just did. But hey, it works, right? Thank you all for sticking with me. Expect another update next week, if not earlier!


	6. Chapter 6

So, was stuck without net for the week again :/ I'm staying at a boarding school, btw. They've just done some renovations and shit so the internet wasn't up yet. "They said it'll be done by next week." She said. "That's what they told us last week too." I said. Oh well, I sincerely hope I won't be left without any next week. But, can't trust their words. Moving on to the chapter, VIOLET HYPE!

* * *

It can't.. How, Natsu's standing right in front of me. I-I don't understand. Yet he's gawking at me, just as I am at him. His eyes shift downwards, then he quickly turns away while blushing. I didn't understand until he pointed at my chest. I looked downwards and discovered that I was naked. I turn away from him as quick as I can, I can't believe he just saw me like that. The big part is that he's seeing me in the first place. He lays his vest around my shoulders. I can feel him, he's real. I can... I can really feel him! With that excitement, I pinned him to the ground in a hug.

"I-I can't believe it, am I really... real?" His smile is soooo much better up close, I can finally see it properly and pointed at me.

"Either you are, or I'm not. But for now, let's just assume you are."

"Sure, let's go with that." I laugh silently.

"What happened just now?" He asks suddenly, I got off of him and started thinking.

"I don't really know. Suddenly everything collapsed and I just fell for a long time. When I opened my eyes, you were there."

"The gem started sucking the fire away from me, and it just spat you out after a while. Does that mean I lost my power? I mean, I'd be fine with the trade. But I just wanna make sure." So, Natsu ignited his palm and we're watching my flame rise. It seems brighter than it was before.

"If anything, I'd say it's prettier." I nod as I was just thinking the same thing.

"So, I'm really in the human world..." My dreamy eyes shift upwards, which didn't go unnoticed by Natsu.

"I'm gonna make sure this is gonna be the best time of your life!" He shouts all of the sudden. The promise surprised me, and made me really happy too. He wants to do that for me. I feel my cheeks getting wet. I'm sure he saw it too, because he's hugging me tightly again.

"I promise." He whispers.

"But, where do I stay?"

"With me, of course."

"Sleep?"

"In my bed, of course."

"What about you?"

"On the couch, of course."

"You seem to have an answer to everything."

"Of course!" I HAD to pinch him, no one's judging me right? I know he doesn't, he's laughing at it.

"For now, let's just go home." 'Home'. I know it's technically my home too, but I still can't imagine 'coming home'.

"Yea-woah!" I feel my feet fail me as I try to stand up. Tripping over, Natsu manages to catch me.

"Hey, you all right?"

"I guess one does not simply walk at my age."

"You can say that again." I don't know if he was kidding, or was just caring. Either way, I liked it.

"Don't worry, I'll get you there."

"Ho-eek!" He lifts me up without any kind of warning and not a second later I'm in his arms, princess style. When we run out of the weird structure, the ground starts trembling heavily again. We turn to see a giant violet beam of light shine up to the skies. The building sinks into the ground, leaving no trace. When the light disappeared, a Violet remained. We stared at it, being the only thing remaining of my sudden 'creation'. Natsu plucked it.

"What're you doing?"

"I'm keeping it, I want it. This flower right here symbolizes what happened today, it symbolizes you. I want it." That answer kind of got me some butterflies. So now he's sprinting homewards.

"You can take it easy, Natsu. We're in no hurry."

"Considering the fact that you've no proper clothing during the night, we are."

"Hey, I'm not cold! After all, you're warming me up big time."

"Not enough." Jeez, he can get a bit carried away. But it's pretty cute, that he's concerned like that. I wasn't lying though, bouncing to his warm and naked chest is heating me up... in multiple ways. We've reached the house now. He opens the front door slightly, then kicks it open. As gentle as he possibly could, he laid me down on the couch. I'm smiling up at him. I've never seem him like this before. In a way, it's refreshing. In another way, it's exciting. In yet another way, it's cute.

"You'll finally be able to taste the crap that I prepare for myself." I almost choked when he said that. Way to ruin the moment, not that he knew of it.

"Hey, you ok?"

"Yeah, just some bad timing."

"On what?"

"Nevermind. I'm sure your food's not as bad as you think it is."

"You'll have to convince me after you've eaten some."

"Challenge accepted." By hearing that, he grins at me before leaving for the kitchen. I'm still flustered, but this feels amazing. I can physically touch all of this now. I'm a real living being now. Wait, a real human being goes to guilds or school or works and stuff. I got my magic, right? Yeah, there's that fire of mine. So Natsu can use my magic while I can too, interesting. So I guess I'm classified as a mage. Looking through the doorway, I see Natsu's gathering the ingredients. He's just about to ignite the fire. Wait, I don't think Natsu would hold back THAT much. Why's that flame smaller than he's usually make it? Slowly, I get up from the couch and walk over to him. Am I seeing this right? For as far as I can tell, the closer I got to him, the bigger the flame became.

"The hell?" He stares at his hand.

"I think I understand."

"Oh, I didn't think you'd get up. What's this about?"

"Your magic is still connected to me, just on a more physical level. Meaning: the closer I am to you, the more powerful your magic. That of course also applies vice versa: the further away I am from you, the weaker your magic." He looks at his hand, seeming to figure it out himself. Then he just stands up and smiles at me.

"Easy, I just stay close to you." He says it like he really wants or likes it. Not that I don't, but still.

"Tomorrow, we'll get you some clothes." Oh yeah, and normal human beings also have those.

"Oh yeah, forgot about those."

"Heh, well you'll probably need them."

"But what then?"

"You're gonna become a member of Fairy Tail, of course!" His arms spread widely, as if he was inviting me. Me, a Fairy. I didn't think of that at all.

"You sure I can just go ahead and do that?"

"If you can't join then I'm quitting, simple as that." There's that determination again.

"Alright, alright. You always gotta go overboard, don't you?" He smiles as if he wanted me to say that.

"Sure do! But I oughta get you something better to cover yourself with for now." And then I was reminded of the fact that I've been exposing most of my body the whole time. Seesh, he sure could embarass me. After disappearing into his bedroom, he returns with some clothes for me.

"This should fit." I glare at him as he hands me the clothing.

"Don't worry, I won't look." He got the message. He's never really seemed like the perverted kind of guy, but you can never be too sure. When I got back into the kitchen, the table was decorated for a change. The food was sputtering nicely in the pan.

"Unusual." I commented.

"Hey, I'm trying."

"Sure y'are." Then he pulled back my chair for me to sit on it, most gentleman-like. This is a side of Natsu no one knew about, and not many WILL know about. Makes me feel kind of good about myself. When he sat down in his chair, I only noticed what was in between us. The Violet from earlier. I smile, knowing that he'll care for it.

The plate before me mainly consisted of pork, the one he captured yesterday. But I know it wasn't just pork I smelled. I don't know what kind of stuff he threw on top of it, after all, it's the first time I'm smelling food.

"I don't know what it is, but it smells great to me."

"Then you better dig in." He points at my plate with his fork. Looking to my left and right, I notice the fork and knife next to my plate. I grasp them firmly, and stab the pork. It's really tough, I've no idea how to use these things! I'm so clumsy. I know Natsu's holding back his laughter, I know he is. But, he's standing up. Walking over to me. He's behind me, and is holding my hands. Putting them in the correct position, he's guiding me through the process of eating. It was really funny, and also a bit embarassing. But I'm happy he did it, it felt really... nice. It generally does when he gets so close to me.

"Thanks."

"I told you I'd make it as enjoyable for you as I possibly could. How enjoyable could it be if you can't enjoy the food?" He grins at me as he's sitting down once more.

"You're still going on about that?"

"I promised, did I not?" And how passionate you are about your promises. I don't think he's ever made another one, did he?

"Well, I must say, it tastes great to me."

"The time will come where you've gained enough eating experience to realize that what I'm feeding you right here is, in fact, trash." I'm laughing loudly now, just the way he said it made it so great.

"Well then, tomorrow will be your first day out in the city."

"It will be?"

"You'll need to come with me for those clothes, I can't exactly get them myself."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm terrible at that kind of stuff." His voice turned a bit lower with that, almost like growling. I guess it was to be expected.

"Alright, at least you gave me something that doesn't expose more than half of my body." Now he turns away again, blushing. Maybe he's a bit of a pervert after all.

"Natsu... You're not secretely into that sort of stuff, right?" His eyes widened and his motions looked as if he was panicking.

"Uhm, eh, not exactly. I mean, eh, how do I say this properly? I mean, your body's great and all. But I wouldn't want to go through the trouble, that trouble being to hurt you or something along those lines, to get... uh... something done." Oh god, that was the clumsiest I've ever seen him. That assures me that he's got no ill intentions at least, plus it was kinda funny.

"Thanks, I guess." He did compliment me, after all.

"Uh, it's ... all right?"

"Sorry, I just wanted to make sure." God, why did I have to make things so awkward?

"Don't worry, that's uh... pretty normal, I'd say. Anyways, let's just get some sleep."

"Yeah, sounds good to me." Now he's guiding me to his bedroom, god that sounds so wrong. I slowly move under the blankets, Natsu's even tucking me in at this point. It's quite ironic, after all, I'm pretty much the one who raised him. Yet, now he's the one taking care of me like a father. Or... No, I'm not gonna go there.

"Goodnight." I see his head stick out of the doorway one last time before I am left by myself. Of course, I'm still wondering how and why this all happened. But, I guess I should be happy about it rather than questioning it. I can now feel, taste, smell like Natsu has all his life. Right now, I really am... alive.

_Natsu's POV_

I think it's about time to wake her up, it's been long enough. I wonder how tiring yesterday really was for her, she sure slept enough to make up for it. It's freaking noon! Shifting over the wooden planks, I try to keep as quiet as I possibly could. After reaching the door, I push it open with as little force as possible. Then my gaze fell upon her angelic sleeping face. Damn it, now I don't even WANT to wake her anymore. Getting closer, I observe every single part of her facial features. So far, it's looking pretty perfect to me. I think I lost myself staring at her for a bit right there, but was brought back to consciousness by her mumbling.

"Natsu..." Oh crap, hide! I rush underneath the bed, hoping she hasn't seen or heard me.

"Come...closer." Damn it, she's got me.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"You smell great." Uhm, what? I raise my eyes to her face, her eyes were still closed. Is she dreaming about me? I bend over, trying to get closer. Then, her eyelids slowly revealed those violet gems.

"Natsu!" Get on your knees and beg, get on your knees and beg.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Pray to the heavens for my sinful soul, it was never my intention to cause any sort of harm.

"W-What were you doing just now?" That's weird, she doesn't sound angry at all. If anything, she sounds embarassed. I guess I can't blame her. Does that mean... MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED!

"I uh, I... I originally came here with the intention to wake you, but then I kinda got lost."

"Lost? Lost how exactly? This is your own house, is it not? And you're right here, so how... lost?"

"Eh, not that kind of lost."

"Then what kind?"

"The kind where you found something... distracting."

"And that was?" Damn it, how do I get out of this? Tell her the truth? What, you crazy? No, I can't do that. I have to-

"You." ... Why did I just say it?

"Uhm... oh. I think I understand." She gets out of the bed and is now standing before the window. She suddenly turns around and smiles at me.

"Let's get me some clothes!" I don't... That smile just makes me lose all my worries. I slowly nod my head with a smile of my own.

"You oughta get changed though." I suggest before leaving the room. I can hear a grunt coming from her while I close the door, heh. Later, I find myself staring at her while she's chomping down the breakfast I prepared as if it was... me. Holy crap, have I always looked like that when I ate stuff?

"I'm not gonna be the only one eating, right?"

"Huh? Oh, right. Sorry, got lost in thought."

"While staring at me?"

"Of course, what else would I be thinking about?" Openly admitting something seems like the best way to handle girls to me. Look at that, she's blushing and can't look at me directy. Seems better than stuttering all over and not getting a damn word out there.

"Do you know what kind of stuff you'll want to be wearing?"

"I got a general idea, but I won't tell you about it!"

"Alright then, you better make it worth it." She chuckles as I mention that.

"Until now, I've found it rather difficult to disappoint you. Even when I don't mean to, you always seem to appreciate anything I do."

"That's because I do, you're simply amazing like that."

"Back at ya." Giving her the grin now, as I always do.

"Well, it's about time for us to get going." I get up, and walk over to her. I stretch out my arm, but she slaps it away.

"I can walk on my own, thank you very much."

"You sure about that?" She can act as tough as she wants, she didn't look like she could just the other day.

"Yeah, don't worry. Have a little faith in me." She punches my chest as she stands up. What's this? Brocode? I'm confused, I can't read her at all. Maybe, that's what's so fun about her. Or at least, one of the things.

"You coming?"

"Duh, of course I am." Next thing I know, we're walking down the shopping street of Magnolia.

"This looks like a nice place." Violet points the store to our left. Not like I'd know what kind of store would look nice.

"Alright, let's take a look then." Upon entering, she immediatly dashed off to gather what she needs, telling me to wait at the dressing rooms. So that's exactly what I did, got myself a nice seat and waited. It took next to no time, I feel a small breeze passing by and notice that the room was now taken.

"Don't peek!" I guessed as much, she's so fast when she wants to be. To think that she learned how to walk only yesterday. I can hear her working in there all right, I don't know what she's doing though. Suddenly, the curtains spread. Violet stands before me with grace and beauty on a level I cannot describe. Watching her waist-length hair engulf her body in a way I've never seen before. She has a ribbon in her hair, a yellow one. The comfy summer top is in red, with yellow lacings. A violet belt seperates the top with the yellow shorts. Her shoes are also topped by tiny violet ribbons. She looks about ready to go to the beach. Those warm colors really make her shine.

"Speechless, are we? Just what I was hoping for." She chuckles. I don't mind, as long as I get to see her smile.

"Pretty much, you look amazing!" A man can be honest... every once in a while.

"Thanks, but you're gonna have to do the paying."

"I'll gladly spend the money." I assure her. After all, she looks perfect.

"Flatterer."

"I was only being honest."

"Well thank you, sir honesty." I bow in the old-fashioned way.

"It is my pleasure, lady Angelique." I guide her as elegant as I possibly could to the checkout. The price isn't that bad. Plus, I don't really need money all that much. Violet smiles at me when we exit the store.

"So, what now?"

"To Fairy Tail, of course!" I raise my fist in excitement. Of course, I can't wait until she has her emblem. So, we race towards the guild hall. Surprisingly, she won.

"Seems like you got the hang of it."

"You tend to pick things up rather quickly after having watched others do it for centuries."

"Good point. You ready?" I place my hands on the giant double doors, looking at her for the answer to my question. She nods shyly. As cute as it was, I focused on the task at hand. Pushing the doors aside, the first thing I had to do was dodging a chair flying at me. Naturally, how else could it be? The guild was having one of it's typical brawls.

"Yo, Natsu! Who's the pretty lady?" Tss, those perverted bastards better not get too close to her!

"None of your goddamn business, Wakaba!"

"Every pretty girl is my business, you know that!" He laughs it off as if it's nothing. I'll make sure he understands soon enough.

"A new recruit?" I look down, noticing master Makarov standing before us.

"Yeah." Violet responds openly. The master walked towards her, until he suddenly passed her and was looking at... DAMN THAT OLD PERVERT TO HELL! I swear, I kicked him across the entire guild hall. The whole guild was staring at me. Crap. Not only did I expose any potential attraction to the guild, but to Violet herself as well.

"You're rather touchy about this one, aren't you Natsu?" How do I get myself out of this mess?!

"Of course, I've known her since I was a little kid. Childhood friends are there to be cherished, are they not?" Phew, seems like they bought it.

"Sorry, sometimes I can't get a hold of myself." Makarov's apologizing to Violet.

"What's your name, dear?" And now he's all formal? I don't get him, I sincerely don't.

"Violet."

"And?" Shit, we didn't think of a last name...

"Shidori." Well, seems like she did. Mirajane now comes over, probably for the stamp.

"What color would you like your emblem to be?"

"What color do you think?" Heh, the playful tone made it sound just right. Not a minute later, Violet's neck was blessed with the Fairy Tail emblem.

"Party for the newcomer, Shidori Violet!" The huge uproar that naturaly followed came. Violet seemed to have a good time, which is what's most important right now. After all, I made that promise...

* * *

Phew, this is most likely to be the longest chapter I've written ... ever. Not that it's impressive, it sure as hell doesn't make up for a week. But hey, it's getting there. I guess I might have gone into a bit too much detail. It's not like anything REALLY happened this chapter. I just kinda went into a lot of depth, I want to believe. No harm done, right? Right, let's go with that. Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

Yo, here once more I am! Been doing nothing for FF at all in the past few days, sorreh :c As always, I will keep trying. I won't stop until all is done, that'll be a while... Oh well, allow me to attempt an update!

* * *

Around me, the whole guild's welcoming me. People are patting me on the back and introducing themselves, not like I didn't already know who they are. I'm missing Natsu, though. Looking around, I see him watching me from the back. He looks happy, I guess that makes me happy too. So there's Cana, drinking once more. The usual guild battle was raging. Right when I got near, Natsu flies out and crashes into me. He's keeping me in place, in multiple ways. I can't physically move underneath him but I also just can't do anything because of him being so close. This is so awkward, he's right on top of me. When he raises his head, he looks me in the eyes. I can see his cheeks taint pink as well, and so he got off of me as quick as he can.

"Natsu, don't go so rough on the new member. You might have known her for long, but she hasn't known the guild for that long." It's obvious that the master's not that serious about it, but we know what he really means. I can see all those grins, amused by our little performance. Plus, I actually have know the guild for a long time... so, joke's on you!

"You know it's not anything like that!"

"Anything like what?" That eyebrow of Makarov goes sky-high, of course Natsu would give them that kind of tasty dessert. Sigh, sometimes I wonder if he even realises this kind of stuff himself.

"Whatever, it's getting late. I guess we'll see you tomorrow!" God damn it, Natsu. Think before you speak! He pulls me towards the doors without turning around until Macao makes another comment.

"Wait, she's staying... with Natsu? A girl is staying with Natsu?!" The questions seems to have a rather drastic effect on people, as they immediatly start laughing aloud.

"Oh dear, let us see how this goes. I hope nothing bad happens to you, child." I can't help but laugh at how clueless these people are, I've been with Natsu for as long as he remembers. I do wonder what this 'bad' includes, though. I hardly doubt Natsu could do anything bad to me. Perhaps there's even more stuff that I don't know about him? Well, I guess I won't get to think about that stuff now. He's dragging me out once more. Just when we get out of there, the blonde girl shows up again.

"Hey, I didn't get to introduce myself earlier thanks to the party and all. My name is Lucy." She poilitely sticks her hand out. I guess I'll give her the shake, if I must. If that satisfies her illusion of maturity, it'll have to do.

"I'd give you my name, but it's pretty much written in the clouds by now." Natsu snickered to my left. I detected Lucy taking note on that, what is she after? Is she suspecting us or something?

"Can I speak to you privately, for a moment?" That's rather sudden, but I guess it's fine.

"Sure, if Natsu's fine with that." Natsu himself just raises his shoulders and leaves us be for a bit.

"I'm worried about him." She starts.

"Worried? Why?"

"He seems to have been talking to himself at night, lately. I don't know why, is he lonely or something? I just wanna make sure he's alright. Can you see if you can get anything out of him or at least make sure he's fine?" Woah, she's seriously worried about him. And to think it's all because he was talking to me, not that I can tell her that. I don't know how much longer I can keep it quiet, if they're gonna make it this hilarious. They keep bringing this sort of stuff up and from then on it's all pretend for me.

"Natsu? Why wouldn't he be fine? I've never seen him not super energetic or excited." I have to assure her that there's nothing to worry about.

"Just make sure, ok?" And then she just leaves. Whatever, I won't pay it too much thought.

"Natsuuuuu!" I call out to him, he replied by sticking his head out of a treetop.

"What was that all about?" He asks as he climbs down. I don't know if he's seriously asking me, or is just kidding. I know he's got those great ears.

"Something unimportant, let's go home." 'Home', still can't get used to it.

"Alright. I'm happy everyone seemed so eager to have you at the guild. You make a great first impression!" Sure I do, just like the first time.

"Just like when I appeared before you?" I glance over at him, he's all red again.

"Well..uh, that's uh. That was an exception." He's stuttering again, this is gonna be fun.

"So you didn't like it?" I cover my chest with my hands, turning away from him. It was a really sulky voice I pulled too, he HAS to know I'm kidding.

"N-No, that's not it. Eh, it was more... unexpected." He honestly can't look me in the eyes anymore.

"So you DID like it?" And now he swallows again, staring me down with an uncomfortable look.

"Eh, I-I ... Can I leave that blank?"

"Sure, if you want to score a 0."

"A 0 on what?"

"My approval." He gulps, I guess he's taking it pretty serious. I love toying with him, it's so easy too.

"Yes, I did like it." He drops his head, sighing in defeat. See, that wasn't so difficult? I mean, you just admitted you like my body. Nothing serious, at least nothing I dislike. I know Natsu's not that kind of person, he can contain himself. And it's me who forced it out of him, not like he wanted to just say it like that. He's just such a good person, a little but silly but that's fine.

"You failed." His helpless expression is priceless.

"But, I.. I answered! I tried hard!" The whine, it's adorable.

"You openly admitted something that you shouldn't have, tsk. But you get this for the effort." I place a quick and small kiss on his cheek and run off. I don't know why, but I feel really comfortable and confident around him right now. Maybe we're just back and forth the entire time, where he has me in a corner and then vice versa. I managed to reach the house first. Of course, I had already nestled in the couch when he got home. He still looks flustered, I would be too.

"That was uhm... unexpected." He really has a poor vocabulary, can't say anything else about me.

"You say that a lot, am I really that unpredictable?" He quickly nods, I guess that's that.

"Anyways, tomorrow you and I are going on a mission!" He sounds really excited, but I guess I am too.

"Cool, what mission?"

"Uh, I'm supposed to know that already?" Of course, why would I suppose he's done that already. After all, mission are there to be sweeped off the board and dragged to Mirajane or whoever's currently there and straight up leave.

"I'll take a shower then." I guess you gotta do it, might as well do it now. I mean, I gotta take care of this body I just got.

"Alright. You can do it, right? Just wanna make sure you'll be alright." How gentle, and not suspicious in any way.

"I'll manage, I've seen you do it countless times." I whink at him, leaving him with red cheeks once more. God I love teasing him like that. While spreading the soap over my body, I look down at my breasts. So, I guess he likes these. It's a funny thought, to just put it out there like that. But I'm kind of relieved that he at least feels attracted to me in that regard. I know that I can't deny his own good looks either. It's not like I haven't been thinking about this stuff. When I get a physical body, that of course also means I get to 'physically interact' with people. So naturally, this kind of stuff got to mind when I hugged him for the first time. I don't know what I'm thinking, but I like it. While standing before the mirror, I'm staring myself in the eyes. I've never really gotten to look at myself through one of these. I really like my hair, unlike lots of other girls. They tend to get all hyped out about it not being perfect, but perfection is boring if you ask me. It looks nice, I don't need more than that. After covering my body, I leave the bathroom. Natsu's been waiting on the couch the whole time, he looks absent too.

"What're you thinking about?" I got his attention by crashing into the seat next to him.

"What you did... earlier." Ah, so it left a big impression. I guess I can leave him to his questioning self then. Walking over to the door to the bedroom, he stops me.

"But, why did you do it?" He was bound to ask.

"I wanted to." Simple, straight-forward.

"Bu-"

"Atutututu." I place my finger on his lips.

"I'll only allow one question of that kind a day, ok?" Might as well turn it into a little game, right?

"Alright, understood." At least he's nog making a big deal out of it, nice and obedient.

"And what do you get in return?" How considerate.

"Hmmm, let's see. Let's just keep it simple, you owe me breakfast every morning." I don't need anything from him, I can't ask for more than he's already giving me.

"But, I already do that?"

"There's nothing I can ask from you that you don't already do for me." He chuckles.. nervously.

"Hehe, well I do try. I promised, didn't I?"

"Yep, you oughta make more promises like that."

"I don't think I will, though."

"Only I get a promise?"

"Only you." Dammit stomach, get those stupid butterflies out of there. Ah fuck it, WOOOH I'm special! Not only that, but special to him. I mean, not like I didn't know what he just said. But... HE SAID IT!

"Ehehehe, I think I'm going to bed now." Retreat, retreat, retreat. You're too light-headed, can't be around him. Must... find shelter.

"Alright, I'll wake you up if you keep napping for too long." I freeze in place, I won't let you get away with that one Natsu.

"Just like this morning?" He starts coughing up his water, told you I'd get you back. He clears his throat, this better be good.

"Yes. Is that a problem?" Uh.

"N-No?"

"Good, now off to bed with you." He shoos me away, damn it I thought I had him cornered. Gotta work on this, I can't just utterly fail stuff like that. Oh well, a good night's rest is always appreciated. I don't know where, but tomorrow I'm going SOMEWHERE with him. I hope I won't cause too much trouble. After all, I haven't fought with my own magic... ever. But then again, Natsu'll be there. I'm sure we're not going to anything too dangerous from the start, and nothing will be too troublesome that he can't take out alone. All I gotta do is get my engines going, keeping them warm is easy. Let's see about all that tomorrow, now is sleepy time.

A slideshow of all the previous Dragon Slayers I've been with soar right past me. I don't even recall most of them, but I recognize them. They were all either brutes, thieves, or scammers. All these strings with images pass me so quickly, it seems like there's no end to them. Am I really that old? No, I know I'm not. Then what is all this? Before me appears the image of Natsu, immediatly dispelling my train of thought. I watch his lips move, I don't hear a sound though. What's he saying? I try to get closer, but I can't get there. Trying to focus, I make an attempt at reading his lips.

"Why ca..n't y-you.. be... use..ful?" No, that can't be what he's saying. His expression turns menacing and serious. I suddenly hear the sound of his voice coming from the image.

"I did all I could for you, and you give me nothing in return? I need your power, Violet. GIVE IT TO ME!" He yells when he lunges at me from the image. I scream loudly.

"Violet, wake up!" I wake up to Natsu shaking me back to Earthland. I look at him, realizing that it was a bad dream.

"Natsu!" I jumped at him, pinging him to the ground.

"Hey, it's alright. What happened?"

"I had the worst nightmare I've ever had."

"Ah, bad dreams. Tell me what it was about, that usually helps." I get off of him and we sit on the bed. I start telling him what I dreamt about.

"It was about you. You said that you wanted my power, you demanded it." He starts laughing to himself.

"Natsu?" I'm getting kind of worried now.

"Don't worry. I can assure you that that's not reality. In a reality like that, I wouldn't exist. I'd be dead, I'd have killed myself because of that stuff. I would never allow anyone, not even me, to do that to you." He speaks confidently while straddling my cheek.

"T-Thank you, but don't kill yourself!" He was really drastic with that statement, but it did help me.

"I'm only speaking the truth, now let's forget about it." I'm really happy now, he does that to me. I don't even know why or how, but he always makes me feel happy.

"C'mon, let's eat." He pulls me from the bed into the living room. While walking, I noticed that he's only in his boxers. And I myself am only in my underwear.

"Uhm, Natsu?"

"Yeah?" He turns around, curiously.

"Shouldn't we like... get dressed?" He looks down my body and down his, then starts blushing heavily. I chuckle, it's really funny to get him embarassed like that.

"S-Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

"It's okay, you were just too focused on making me feel better."

"Y-Yeah, let's go with that." He brings his arm to the back of his head and looks up. I guess that's my qeue to leave for clothes. I slowly back away and get to my closet. Natsu bought it just for me together with even more clothes just the other day. I had no idea he had this much money saved up. But then again, I guess he REALLY doesn't need it all that much. He does live really self-sustaining. He does mission mostly for the fun of them, doesns't he?

He managed to get some nice food going again. I don't get why he tells himself that he's a bad cook, the food's great! But disregarding that, we're almost at the guild. Natsu kicks the door open, as usual.

"Look who's here!" I hear a male voice shout, I'm not even bothered enough to check who it is. It's just gonna be one of those perverts.

"Morning, Violet, Natsu. How was your night?" Mirajane greets us as we walk towards the bar.

"It was terrible." I grumble. Of course, it was just that dream. For the rest, it was great.

"So Natsu truly is a terri-" Next to me, Wakaba starts. I silence him by continueing my answer.

"But then Natsu made it good again." I grin at the old man, he seems displeased with what I just said.

"Violet, I got one!" Natsu comes running at me with a job.

"You're going on a job with her?!" Macao shouts.

"CAN WE JOIN?" Nearly all of the male members close in and shout in our ears. I feel Natsu's body heat rising. Is it because he's preparing his magic to kick their asses, or because he's just getting plain angry at them? Probably both...

"NO, YOU CAN'T FUCKING JOIN!" Aaaaaaand there's nothing but silence.

"Would you mind if we come along?" I look to my left and see that Erza, Gray and also the blonde asked the question.

"Well.. yeah, I would. You can join me on my second mission. But for my first, I'd really rather have no one but Natsu with me. For personal reasons." They seem to have understood I'm not joking.

"So... What're we doing?" I turn to ask Natsu, he grins at me before showing me the paper.

"A large beast is terrorizing our forest near the city. It's too large for a regular mage to take it down, but with the right magic it could be trapped. Really high ranked mages or mages specializing in traps, sneaking, misleading, anything that could result in the success of trapping this monster." I see, of course Natsu and me are perfect for the job.

* * *

Apologies for not being able to come up with something more creative for a first job, I guess I'll have to make up for that somehow during the job itself. But hey, lots of NatsuXViolet moments. I really just get caught up too much in the small talk, I can't help it :c I love having them converse. But next chapter or let's just say the nearby future at least promises some action. Thank you all for reading, now I'm gon' be out!


	8. Chapter 8

I wanted to start writing the other day, but then my computer crashed -.- Blue Screen of Death ftw, I guess. Kept BSOD'ing on startup, so I turned some things off and now it kinda works again. Can't game, but I can do everything else. I'll fix it later anyways, right now I'm just too lazy :P So, now we got that done. I'll get the mission going now, let's head out!

* * *

"Before you guys go, we'd like to ask something." I was about to leave with Natsu, what's this about?

"We don't know what magic Violet uses yet." Shit, should we just tell them? Surely they'll be suspecting something, right? Hm? Natsu's showing his fire to them, they seem to be misinterpreting.

"Natsu... we asked HER magic, not yours." Natsu seems slightly ticked off, might as well clarify. I place my hand in his flaming one, increasing the flame's intensity. It grew much larger and brighter. They're gaping at me, is something wrong with my face or so?

"Can you copy other's magic?" I mentally facepalm right then and there. If that were the case, I wouldn't be able to properly combine the magic. The nature of my magic flow wouldn't be as compatible.

"No, I just have the same magic as Natsu." They look rather skeptical about this, as long as they don't look for more...

"And I thought Natsu's fire was like super rare and nobody else in the world had it." Gray of course had to make that dumb statement.

"I doubt there's any magic like that. There's always someone that would recreate something unique." Mental 'Get it right, bitch' playing in the background.

"I suppose you're right, it's still rather unexpected. And you say you've known eachother since childhood?" We both nod, Erza hums once more.

"Oh well, it's time for you two to leave! You should really not be late on your first job, you might not get the reward!" I can see the way her eyes light up with the word 'reward', what is up with her?

"Right, we'll be on our way then." Natsu finishes the conversation, thank god. This was starting to get messy. We turn away from them and watch them waving their goodbyes.

"So, I did not even check where the hell we're going." Natsu glances at me victoriously, seems like he enjoys my lack of information.

"An outskirt of Fiore, yet not so far from Magnolia. It's a very bewildered village called 'Koyatsumi'."

"Bewildered? Don't tell me there's gonna be spiders!" I act all melodramatic. The air fills itself with Natsu's laughter.

"Good thing I know you're not like that, would've been such a bummer."

"So, you wouldn't like me if I would be afraid of spiders?" I lean forward with my hands in my hips.

"I know I'd like you less if you were any different from what you're like right now." He copies my stance, why does he always know just what to say? Or at least... most of the time... hehe.

*Sigh* "You're too good at this." I give up, I'm not gonna waste my time convincing myself I can turn this around. And there's his triumphant smirk again.

"Where're you going?" He asks me all of the sudden.

"Where would I be going?"

"You seem to be going to the train station." I see his cheeks acquire a tint of green as he speaks the word 'Train', it was quite amusing.

*Smirk* "Yeah? How else do you propose we get there? By foot?"

"That's EXACTLY what I propose!" He shows me a plan through the forest to our destination, his drawings look silly and kind of adorable.

"I told you it's not that far, we can get there in a day or two. Plus, I don't want our first mission to include trains." 'Our' first mission. That sounds... weird, or is that just me? Maybe not weird... just... I don't know. It makes me feel weird when he says it.

"Fine then, let's go." There's no convincing Natsu, as we all know. At least i'm rewarded with that silly, happy face of his. It's not so far anyways, or so he said. The forest's coming near, I turn around once more to take a look at the city gate.

"What's wrong?" Natsu asks, I would've done the same I guess.

"First time I'm gonna be traveling, kind of nervous." He grins at me before coming over.

"Don't worry, we'll be back soon. I'll make sure of that." He says it with so much conviction, who could question those words? I know I can't.

"Thanks, but we should stop wasting time." I remark with a tap on his shoulder. He seems to have lost himself staring at the city, and I thought I was having issues.

"Right, sorry. Let's go!" And we set out. The forest's open right now, but I can see the path narrowing down before us. In fact, by now we can already barely walk next to one another. Natsu takes the lead, as I follow suit. It's rather peaceful, the wind rushing through the leaves, the birds chirping, the bees humming, the flowers blooming... I've never been able to get close to any of these things.

"Did you hear that?" Natsu asks me while he stares up around the tree tops.

"The wind?" I'm not sure what he means, the wind and the life around here is all I'm hearing.

"That's what you think... I can smell 'em." When Natsu finished his sentence, some masked fellows came rushing down from treetops. They're yelling some jibberish that I can't understand at all. Those masks are gigantic... and wooden. They're not wearing any proper clothes, just a tribal skirt thingy. They got these spears too, let's just hope they only have those for self-defense.

"Kokrotsu nojhara-yo?" One asks Natsu, who's spread his arms around me.

"The hell is he saying?" Natsu glared at the man who spoke, probably the chief.

"I don't know, just don't piss them off."

"I'll try... We're just passing through, we mean no harm to anyone or anything around here." Hm? Something's moving to Natsu leg... Is that? An azure... snake?

"Natsu, watch it!" The snake leaps at Natsu. I freak the heck out, of course. Who knows what the thing can do? I acted as quick as I could by generating a flame copy of myself that caught the snake mid-air.

"Holy... Nice one, Violet!" Natsu gives me the thumbs up, phew. Oh crap, my copy's spreading fire around. Shit, I didn't mean to cause a forest fire! The weird men before us are freaking out as well.

"Don't worry, I got this!" Natsu rushes over to the flames and slurps them up as if it as spaghetti. When the fire stopped, those guys over there seemed to be even more out of their mind. They're screaming and pointing at us as if we're some kind of demons or gods or whatever. They pull us by our arms, taking us with them.

"Hey, where're we going?" Natsu asks them, yet they don't answer.

"Natsu, just go along peacefully. We don't know what they're gonna do to us, but they seemed scared somehow. So I'm sure we don't have much to fear."

"I guess you have a point, no need in harming innocent peoplle." What counts, counts twice for Natsu. At least, when it comes to doing good. Doing bad is like quadrupled, just not intentionally.

"Hondrunte szo manqa!" I think we arrived at their village. This place seems odd, at least it's very different from Magnolia. But I guess that was to be expected, it being a village in the middle of the forets inhabited by primitive folk. Some old guy now comes near us, at least I can see his face. There's a lot of face-paint going on there, but it looks pretty cool.

"You are people from the civilized city nearby, correct?" Whoa, he speaks a proper language!

"Uh, yeah. We're from Magnolia." I answer, gotta make sure to stay polite.

"Ah yes, that's the name. I was told that you two were able to cause AND CEASE a forest fire."

"Hehe, we're fire mages. But special ones, so yeah... we do have that ability." Natsu's holding back, I can tell.

"We've been searching for a remedy for years, but we have yet to find it. You two might be able to help us with a plague that has been upon us for years now."

"Huh? What kind?" So they want us to help them, I guess if it's not too much trouble we can always give it a shot.

"During a certain night, over 5 years ago, our sacred temple caught flame. The fire did not seem to harm the building itself, but it has not allowed us to enter ever since. If you would be so kind to make an attempt at freeing us from this accursed fire, we would be ever so grateful." That's weird, we're dealing with a very special kind of fire then. This sounds fishy.

"Natsu? We don't know what we're dealing with, but let's take a look. I'm kind of interested." He nods, that's a go-sign for me. The old man guides us towards their temple. It wasn't far, since the village isn't that big. But when I saw the burning temple, I immediatly felt this familiar surge of power flow through me. The bright fire itself felt like a blessing to my face. I recognized it... but I could not believe it. I rush towards the temple, hoping that it's true. Can it be him? I get to touch the fire, what seemed to recognize me as well.

"Blaze, is that you?!" Natsu pulls a weird face when I yell his name. Of course, he doesn't know yet.

"Violet?! Whoa whoa, wait what? one, holy crap it's good to see you! Two, WHY THE HECK ARE YOU HUMAN?!" Of course, good old Blaze.

"I'll tell you later, right now I want you to meet Natsu." I motion for Natsu to come closer, yet he still seems confused.

"So he must be the Dragon Slayer. And? From the looks of 'progress' he's made, I'd say he's doing great!" Damn, it's been so long since I talked to this guy.

"Yeah, he's the first good one I met. But let's discuss that later. For now, just take my word and know that he's the best we could wish for!" I hear the loud, skeptical laugh of the guy who basically raised me.

"Is that so? Well, let him have me then."

"Natsu, I want you to consume him." I turn to him, he's still confused.

"Wait, you know this guy? He's like you?"

"Questions later, do it now!" He's slightly startled, but proceeds anyways. Moving before the temple, he exhales deeply. With the inhale, Blaze's crimson fire slowly moves it's way from the temple to Natsu's mouth. It's a lot to eat, but Natsu gets it done anyways. As soon as the last bit disappeared into Natsu's mouth, he starts coughing like a maniac. I guessed it wouldn't go without trouble.

"Natsu, stay calm ok? Take deep breaths, take it easy." I pat him on the back, hoping to encourage his breathing rythm. Despite my and his efforts, he faints. I catch him just before he reaches the ground, I guess we can only hope for him to wake up soon..."

_Natsu's POV_

Damn, that was a tough meal. The hell am I even? Around me is nothing but a scorched landscape that's got a few lavapools here and there. The heat feels familiar, though.

"So, you're with me now. Violet spoke highly of you, let's hope she's right." To my left was a portrait of a human, framed and filled with crimson fire.

"Who're you?" I'm in an unfamiliar place, with only one unfamiliar guy... this better be good.

"The name's Blaze. I suppose Violet has not told you yet, but there's more of her kind. I'm a flame spirit, just like her. Her flame is the Spectral Flame, which you've gained the blessing from when you became a fire Dragon Slayer. The Crimson Flame is my domain. It's the preference of your father..." Hold on... Violet... Blaze... Igneel, they're all connected. let me get this straight.

"So you're a flame spirit, just like Violet, from the Crimson Flame? The flame that Igneel liked the most?"

"That's right." Fair enough, so what's the deal with this place?

"Where am I?"

"In a place complimenting my properties. You consumed a flame spirit, that means I'm going to be with you from now on. I suppose Violet was like this in the beginning as well, before you some-freaking-how got her to live like a human."

"So... you're gonna be in my mind then?"

"Kind of... well yeah."

"So, why am I here?"

"You don't think I'm just gonna let you use me just like that, do you?" Oh god, and I thought I was just dreaming.

"You're gonna fight me, I wanna see what Violet has taught you so far." He's preparing his fire, better make sure I do whatever I can to avoid his strikes. Something about this place makes me feel good inside though. It feels... it feels as if my magic is infinite.

"You noticed it, didn't you?" He calls out to me.

"This place is not reality, so you're not using your real body. We're in your mind right now, so your magic energy right here is as high in quality and quantity as you want it to be. Should be enough of an advantage over me, right?" I guess he's about right, how could I lose? Let's try something... Boom, 6 copies of mine! I'm starting to like this, heck yeah!

"Let's go!" Charge! Nothing he can do against this kind of manpower. He smirks... he's smirking? What's his game? Here comes his move. He raises his flaming fist. He slams it down and... SPLITS THE FUCKING EARTH FOLLOWED BY A VOLCANIC ERUPTION? Most of my flame doubles are gone, I barely dodged it myself.

"One more thing, I get the same bonus." Yeah, and NOW he tells me. I roll my eyes. I can sense his grin from the back of my head. What do I do? I need to step lightly, be quick on my feet. After all, I'm nothing when I go straight to the face. He's very powerful and destructive, so no more charging. I just gotta see what kind of abilities I've got with this kind of magic. I slowly move backwards, flames engulfing my body. Where Violet's flame passes, my body becomes transparent. With a combination of this method and my increased speed, I'm sure I can get somthing good in. And with a small gust of wind remaining, I leave Blaze searching the area for me.

"This was to be expected." He slides his face in his hand as if he's disappointed. I guess I make sure not to keep him waiting then. Moving in, I reached him in a matter of seconds. He suddenly swirls his leg around, almost hit me too. Luckily, I manage to duck underneath. Now that he was standing on one leg, I strike at the one he's standing on. Now he's floating horizontally, as I smack him down with a somersault kick. Holy crap, I put a lot more force in that than I anticipated. The crater erupted with his fire, forcing me to move away.

"Good job there, I expected no less." He's puffing, as am I. Maybe it's because even though we gained this magic power without any risk whatsoever, we're still not used to having it?

"You almost had me with that last one too, surprised me."

"Heh, well I've known Violet for over a century. You pick those things up after a while." I guess he's right about that.

"But it seems we have to call it for now. You know just as well as I do why we can't go on. If we do, we might even go into a coma... we don't want that."

"Then that makes this my shortest fight ever. Not to mock you or anything, that stuff you pulled was bad shit crazy!"

"Heh, you might be able to do it yourself... one day. For now, you'll just have to do with the basics." We both collapse next to one another, staring at the burning sky.

"A new flame, huh?"

* * *

So, WOOOH here's Blaze! When they entered the village, my mind went like "Dude, this is so worthless, what're they doing here? ... LET'S GIVE THIS PLACE A PURPOSE!" So yeah, that's what happened :P Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

Sigh, honestly. Let me try this AGAIN. Allow me to explain. The reason that I did not update yesterday is that I've had to rewrite this chapter 2 times already, this is the 3rd time. Because, while I was writing, my screen flipped out for once and didn't boot up from sleep mode with my laptop (which should be pretty much impossible btw). Then, my GPU failed and I had to reboot again. So that lost me about one and a half chapter. Ugh, I quit writing after that. But I'm gonna try to get this done once more. I won't leave you guys hanging this week without a chapter. Expect future updates to always come on Saturday for this story, and Wednesday for my other. Mostly because, those dates are quite a bit more convenient than Tuesday and Friday. Reason for that being that those days grant me the possibility to write the chapters entirely on the day itself. Alright, enough of that. So now, we got another flame to Natsu's arsenal. I don't want Blaze to be as accessible as Violet though. Now, don't you people be taking that the wrong way, you damn pervs. I suppose I'm one to talk :P Ok... Let's go... for the third time.

* * *

_At the time, I wanted to believe Blaze's rejoining with the Dragon Slayer was but a coincidence. Little did I know that in this world, nothing is coincidental..._

"Natsu's been out of it for a while now, he oughta wake up soon. Thank you for taking him in." We're inside the medicinal resident of the place, which was more like a tent than a real building. The people here have been treating him with some kind of herbs and given him some rest. They're actually really nice.

"It is we who are in your debt. I think it's safe to say that the riddance of a pest from over a decade is a bit more valuable than a bit of treatment." He laughs slightly. I suppose he's right, so I think as I shift my eyes to Natsu's resting figure. Until, he suddenly jumps up with a loud inhale. After realizing where he was, he calmly exhales.

"Phew, I totally forgot what happened. It's coming back now, so what'd you guys do?"

"They dragged you in here and got you some good rest, so how'd it go?"

"He uh... 'accepted' me?" I suppose he's still confused about it all.

"Great, so now you've got a second flame. You probably won't be able to use his as freely as my own. And you'll have to start from scratch with his magic, as if you haven't learned any magic yet. You'll kinda be starting over with him, but not leaving me behind. I'm terrible at explaining it, but you get it right?" Ugh, why can't I just get it out. Look at his dumbfounded look, probably doesn't understand a word.

"So... My childhood revamped?" He grins at me, oh hell no.

"HAH, you wish. Blaze won't be that great of a teacher, he's more like you. You might say he's a TAD more mature than you are, but that's saying a lot already."

"You're just jealous because I'm stronger than you!" Ouch, is that... Blaze? I can hear him, too? Damn, that's some headache. So, this is what Natsu's been going through the entire time? How can he stand this?

"Damn, I forgot about the whole 'semi-present' thing."

"Yeah. Dammit Blaze, knock before you barge in on a conversation." I curse at Natsu's forehead, it's a funny sight actually.

"Wait, Violet, you heard him too?" He's just as surprised as I was.

"Yeah, I'm confused about that as well. Though I suppose it's got something to do with the connection between us." The connection between us? That felt kind of awkward, saying that.

"Eheheh, I suppose."

"Are you guys gonna be staring at each other much longer, or are we gonna get moving? You guys were just passing by for something else, right? You've got stuff to do, get going already!" Curse him, he's only been with us for five minutes and he's already bugging me.

"Right, I totally forgot about that. We gotta get omving. Sorry, chief. Thanks for the help!" Natsu drags me out of the place, leaving behind the kind man. He waves us goodbye as we lose sight of him. Now, we're wandering through the forest again. On our way, we find the original, larger path again. Seems like we just lost track of it, and so it eventually leads us to the place we need to be. The village was surrounded by a large wooden wall and a city gate. A woman steps out of it, presumably to greet us.

"Welcome to Koyatsumi village! We don't usually get too much visiters, or are you just passing by?" She's dressed in a way similar to that of the previous people. Only a bit more civilised, but mostly, revealing...

"Actually, we're from Magnolia. We came to help out with the problem you guys had around here." Dammit Natsu, not everybody needs to know who we are. We could've just asked to speak with the guy in charge around here. A mayor might be saying a lot.

"Oh, i should've guessed that such a strong man was here to rid us of this pest. How kind of you to assist us in our time of need." She speaks as she slowly walks to and around Natsu. Hold on for a second, is she honestly just straight up flirting with him? In front of me? No shame?

"Excuse me, we'd like to keep this strictly business-related."

"Oh, and you've got a pretty assistant, too. I suppose I should bring you to the city hall, then. Follow me." I swear, this bitch is gonna get it some day! Ugh, as we walk through the village, it reminds me of those Western type things. Kind of like where Bisca and Alzack spend their time. The houses were also made out of wood, and the ground was clear from plants. Thinking back about it, why is that? It's in the middle of a freaking forest. What bugs me though, is that all the people we say were being rather... intimate. It's like everyone around here wanted anyone that way. Phew, the large building gets in sight, I won't have to stare at this whore's ass for long anymore. We stop before the fairly large door, as the woman knocks.

"Sir, there's assistance from the nearby city."

"Splendid, enter!" She opens the door from us. As they slide open, a small man is revealed to us. He sits in a large chair behind a large desk, emphasizing his own size. It's a comical sight, that's for sure.

"Ah, so these are the mages from the city of stone. Please, have a seat." I step forward and sit down on the chair before him. Natsu follows my example a second later. The way he stared at me made me kind of uncomfortable.

"So, what can you tell us about this beast?"

"Ah, yes. Straight to business, I see. Well, only few have seen the beast in person, and fewer have made it back to the village. We know little of it, but we're certain that it has a lair nearby and that it does not like to get out of it. It loves the wood of the Yokobu tree, which happens to be the wood our village was forged from. It has devoured most of those trees nearby, so now it aims for our village."

"You said it does not like to move away from it's lair, then how does it collect this wood?" Natsu asks him, good point.

"We've seen little of them, but there are... things.. cooperating with it. We don't know what, why or how, but they're collecting the stuff for it. They come in two forms, heavy lifters and swift scouters. As the name we gave them implies, the lifters are the ones doing the real carrying, while the scouters make sure the road is safe and make sure that no one's around. They come in a large pack during the night. So far, only one of our villagers has seen them. It was a little child who hid herself in a barrel out of fear. If you want to know the location of it's lair, I suggest you talk to the barkeeper of the Tenebako bar just on the other side of the road. All rumors pass his ears. He might even be able to tell you more than that. So, that's about all I can tell you. The job doesn't seem easy, will the two of you help us?"

"Of course, that's the entire purpose of us being here! So, you mentioned in the job description that we might be able to lure it out or something, care to enlighten us?" After all, Natsu picked the job because of just that.

"Yes, yes of course. You see, it loves the kind of wood. I'm sure that, if there's a good amount of it nearby her lair, it'll come for it. Problem is that it's most likely guarded by her 'associates', so you'll have to be careful if you attempt to pull this off. I would ask someone to guide you through the whole thing, but I doubt anyone has the courage to do so. I'm sure that you'll be able to lure it out, I don't know of anything that could resist a body so pure and sincere." He's staring at me again. This is starting to get really uncomfortable. He's even freaking drooling on the spot!

"Eh, we oughta get going. We have to get rid of it as soon as possible, after all." Natsu saved me from his mental prison by pulling me out of there. I'm glad to see that these people's pushiness is irritating him as well.

"So, now what do we do?" We can't just head out and see what happens, that would be suicide.

"First, we get a place to stay. I think it's safe to assume that we won't be able to round this job up in a mere day, especially considering there's only a little bit left of it." I suppose that sounds reasonable enough. Though, I still feel kind of icky about this village. Especially around the subject of sleeping.

"Let's go to that bartender first."

"Alright, c'mon." So we make our way to the place that the small man described. A lot of people were here, and so there was a lot of intense staring and kissing going on.

"Hey there, new folks. That's unusual."

"Yo, we're here to help the village out." Natsu greets him while explaining who we are again, I suppose we might as well throw it around by now.

"Ah, mages, are we? If you need information, I'm your guy! Name's Gûntr, pleased to meetcha." Natsu and him shake hands. I honestly just want to avoid physical contact with anyone around here.

"And here's quite a find lady you got there." Oh god, here we go again. Another perv.

"E-Eh, she's uh... She's taken." Natsu, I think you might've given him the wrong message. He winks as Natsu, thinking he understands.

"Too bad, you really won't share, huh? Oh well. Since you're helping us out, the room's free. Here, it's the third door to the right. Don't worry, there's a king-size bed." Now he winks at me, damn it. We enter the room after having some trouble with the door. It was nice and cozy, a little too cozy. It had some really nice accents to it, probably implying something... Ugh, what is wrong with this village?

"A single bed, huh." Natsu stares at thing while mumbling.

"Yeah, you didn't bother to ask him for a room with seperate beds." Honestly, I don't mind too much. But I can't tell him that.

"I have a feeling that there aren't any rooms like that." Oh.. I did not think of that. He actually has a pretty good point, that sounds pretty reasonable for this place.

"I-I suppose. Well, I guess we're sharing the bed then."

"I could sleep on the ground, if you wa-"

"No!" He seems surprised by my yell. Why the hell did I react like that.

"I uh, I'd... I wouldn't want that." God, this is so awkward. I'm blushing like crazy. It's true though, I don't want him to. I'd li-His arms surround me out of nowhere.

"Thanks, we should really get some rest." He whispers, so freaking gentle. I think this is getting too much.

"Yeah, you're probably right." I motion him to turn around, so that I can change. He nods as he turns to face the curtains.

"The mission sounds a lot more complicated than I primarily had envisioned."

"Yeah, I think we should head out in the forest nearby tomorrow morning and train a bit before we collect some information. I have some stuff in mind."

"Alright, sounds like a plan."

"And what the hell is up with this place, everybody acts so... impulsive. So.. intimate. And they're all so into that. It's like it's all they live for. I was afraid I'd lose my innocense aroundh ere."

"I was fearing for that, too."

"So I noticed. Thanks, by the way."

"It's nothing, it's one of the last things I want to have happen to you. Now, we oughta stop tinkering about this. You done yet?"A few minutes later, I find myself in the bed next to him. It feels nice, his skin, his temperature, his breath...

* * *

FINALLY, I managed to write this damn crap without my computer telling me to fuck the hell off! Glorious progress of invention and evolution! What am I even saying at this point? Anyways, I got a pretty cool vision of some stuff in the future in this story. I, of course, won't tell you guys yet. Thanks for reading this chapter, which was oh so frustrating to write for the third damn time. At least my suffering came to an end... for now.


	10. Chapter 10

Ok, promise I'll make use of the Control+S function this time around! Now, I suppose I should be working around this little mission thingy I got going on. We're gonna take the morning chill, and see what we can do towards the end of the day. I've been reading a visual novel, too. I suppose reading is kind of wrong, while also right. But, whatever, it's also using present tense, first person POV. So I'm hoping that could help me write this story a bit better. Though, I presume I'm still mostly gonna stick to what I've been doing. I hope y'all won't mind :P

* * *

*Yawn* The moment I open my eyelids partly, the blinding light of the sun, amplified by the glass window, scorches my eyes. I close my eyes quickly and turn around. A pleasant scent fills my nose, I want to know what it is. As I open my eyes, I am met with Natsu's sleeping face and his warm chest exposed. I feel my cheeks heating up. Trying to escape the warm feeling, I turn to face the ceiling, or that's what I expected to see, at least. Instead, the barkeeper's face was hanging over my posture. I don't know what he's doing here, but I feel like I'm stuck underneath this blanket until he leaves. Which I, in fact, am. Mostly because I'm wearing a garment that I generates the wrong sort of image with the wrong sort of people, luckily, Natsu's not one of them.

"Uhm, excuse me, what are you doing here?" I just have to keep calm. After all, this man gave us a free room.

"Me thought it was time for ye to wake up along with yer pal. There's work to be done." As much as the situation displeases me, the accent still amuses me.

"I suppose you're right, I thank you but I must now ask you to leave."

"Argh, right ye are. Me hopes ya can take care of the boy yourself, can't start without 'im, can ye now?" I quickly nod with a slight grin.

"Suppose I'll be leavin ya then. Make sure to give 'em a good beatin' out there for us all, wontcha?"

"Heck yeah, we will!" I wink at him as he leaves the room. The man grins back at me while closing the door. When the sound of the door closing reachs us, Natsu grunts.

"'Morning!" I go lie on top of him and stare deeply into his eyes with a happy expression on my face.

"Huh? 'Morning? It's morning... MORNING!" He yells as he notices how close I am. Then, he pushes me off and leaps out of the bed. I stare at him, flustered. He rushes into the bedroom while stopping by his clothes. It only took a few seconds, but it was... REALLY rowdy in there. I swear, it sounded like an earthquake was passing by. But Natsu appears once more, completely dressed and ready to start his day.

"Wow, you sure wake up quickly. That's rather unusual, most of the time, you're the one waking up before me."

"Yeah, well, I was stuck thinking about the mission for a while... So I couldn't really catch that much sleep. But this is how I usually wake up, I don't find it that troublesome to get out of bed." Unlike most people.

"Nice, lots of people are just having too much trouble with that." I continue the conversation while turning to my clothes. Natsu catched on and turns around.

"I had a weird dream. About the barkeeper entering our room or something." I freeze mid-pulling on my top as he says that. A slight chuckle escapes my lips.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just think it's funny."

"Well, I sure as hell didn't. He tried to creep up on you, I think he had some perverted ideas." He grunts, but how is that relevant to him? Why would he dream about something like that? I mean, I know it happened just now. But what's going on in that head of his.

"And, you're bothered by that?"

"Of course I am! I wouldn't want anyone el-... Anyone at all to do something like that to you!" I think I caught a glimpse of something there, it sure as hell interests me. Just keep smiling as bright as possible, he'll melt.

"I think Natsu's just jealous that he doesn't have the guts to do something similar himself." Ouch, god freaking damn it.

"Damn it, Blaze. Could you stop doing that?" Natsu yells at himself.

"Why would I? I can only pop up very few times a day, might as well make them fun, right?"

"You're just ruining a conversation!" And the conversation we were having... Uhm, Natsu? I'm not following.

"Oh, what? You were hoping for something, weren't you?"

"SHUT UP!" Natsu seems about ready to punch himself. I don't mind Blaze cornering him like that, it's funny. Blaze has always been doing that to everyone but me. I don't know why, maybe he's the overprotective kind while he's also the careless kind. He's weird like that.

"Actually, it's good that he came. We're gonna need him." I break their little argument.

"Huh? What for?" They both ask in unison.

"You'll see, let's just go out in the forest. We'll need to be in an area where we can't hurt anyone." I want to be prepared, we can't leave anything over to our fortune. We have to give ourselves more options, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do. So, making our way outside, Natsu keep asking me what I want to get done.

"C'mon, just tell me already."

"Natsu, you need to stay focused. You're not being clear-minded."

"Of course I'm not, I got nothing to focus on!" I stop just as we exit the city gate.

"YOU NEED TO TRAIN!" I yell at him. Sometimes, he just can't stop. That can be admirable, but it can also be incredibly annoying.

"S-Sorry. So, what're we gonna do then?"

"Blaze?"

"What?" He reluctantly responds. I don't think he's too happy with this.

"I want you to teach Natsu a high-damage, single-target move. We don't know what kind of enemy we'll be facing, and it'll never hurt to expand our arsenal. If we can find it's weak spot, having this option will definitely be very benefitial to us." I hope these two testosteron-tanks will realize that this is important.

"You're right, think straight. How do we get ourselves the highest success rate. No unecessary risks." Natsu repeats the sentences I taught him a long time ago, when we first started out with our magic.

_Flashback - Natsu's POV_

"HMMMMMMMMMMMMRAAAAARGH!" I spurts at the target that Violet gave me, a nearby tree. With all my magical power, I can go so fast. I'm nearly there, it's time for the swift strike that should cut it down.

*CHOP*

"Yeah! I did it, I did it!" I finally managed to control my magical power a bit!

"Natsu, watch it!" Violet echoes through my mind. I move my hand to my forehead, because it still hurts when she speaks. What am I suppose to watch out for? I am alerted by the cracking sound of wood behind me. I turn around and see how gravity is pulling the tree down in my direction. I'm frozen, staring at the giant mass of wood. My staring was interrupted by a strange force pushing me aside. I watch as the violet flames in the shape of a human gets crushed by the giant tree.

"Are you okay, Natsu?" Violet asks me, as usual. I slam the ground in frustration. Damn it, why can't I ever do something properly?

"Why can't I ever do something without it going horribly wrong?!" I continuously slam my fist into the ground.

"Natsu, stay calm. You're just learning how to use your magic, this kind of stuff is normal." She reassures me, again. She keeps telling me that, but I know she wishes I wasn't such an idiot either. Maybe, I'm just not good enough to wield her power.

"Violet, what if I'm just too reckless to wield your power. I keep charging into dangerous situations, while you're always so smart about everything. Nothing ever goes wrong for you." I hear a loud sigh in my head.

"So what if you are?" Huh? Well, wouldn't that mean I can't properly use the magic, then?

"Then... I can't use your magic properly?"

"... Do you really believe that yourself?"

"Isn't that common sense?"

"No, that's delusional." I'm not following.

"Let me tell you why nothing ever goes wrong when I do something. 2 words, Problem, solving." Problem solving? What does that have to do with this?

"You being so reckless, is a problem. You can solve it. That's exactly what we're gonna do. I know what your problem is, and it's not that you're too reckless. You just focus too much on one point in time. You're having a very narrow vision on the situation, while the future is unknown to you. That's how you think as a powerhouse, but not something like me. What you have to do first, is to take the big picture. Plan ahead, know what the goal is. When you know what you're going for, try to get yourself in a position that offers the highest success rate. Now, all of a sudden, you're a lot more conscious about what's at stake and what needs to be done. You're prepared. All you need to do now, is keep a clean mindset during battle. You have to keep planning ahead. Keep envisioning the result of every action you take, and adapt accordingly. While charging at that tree, you shouldn't have been focusing on that single blow the entire time. Instead, you should've planned on where to strike to influence the direction the tree would fall." Right. Envision the outcome, then, improve it.

"Planning ahead, I see. Violet, that was... brilliant. Holy crap, I totally get it now. I've been doing it so wrong the entire time, while it was so easy to change." I can't believe it took me so long to notice. It's not that I AM wrong, it's that I was DOING it wrong.

"Hehe, of course it was. Now, changing is not so difficult, is it? You just gotta be willing. If you don't want to give it a shot, nothing's gonna happen."

_Flashback end_

'He's grown so much, since then.' I watch him repeat some of the words I told him at that time.

"Well, he sure as hell ain't getting any help from me." Shatter My entire thought process halts right then.

"Blaze, what was that just now?" I'm sure he knows I'm getting angry.

"I said he-"

"YOU'RE GONNA HELP US, ELSE YOU'RE GONNA REGRET EVER COMING TO EARTHLAND TENFOLD!"

"Pff, fine. Only because you asked so nicely." Good. He knows how to listen, after all.

"Listen up, kiddo. All the stuff that Violet's taught you up to this point, ain't gonna work with me. In fact, it's pretty much the exact opposite. If you wanna strike hard, you gotta focus on that blow and only that. Focus on one thing only."

"You're right, that is the exact opposite. But I don't think it should be too difficult." He winks at me, I'm sure he was thinking the same thing I was.

"Now, of course you're gonna have to be able to bring forth my flame rather than Violet's, else this is going nowhere. What do you usually do when you bring out all that violet stuff?"

"Ehm, I try to think of what I'm trying to achieve. And... of Violet." I could sense a small tint of red on his cheeks, I'm liking this.

"I'm gonna let that slide, for now." I can sense Blaze glaring at him, even though he isn't even here.

"Try to think of something powerful, destructive. Try to think of our battle. Think of the blazing sky, the scorching earth. Whenever you're ready, tell me. We gotta work together for this to work." Natsu seems to be focusing big time. He closes his eyes and sits down cross-legged. Natsu started feeling hotter, suddenly.

"I'm feeding you my magic power, right now. Try to keep the image in your head." For as far as I can tell, it's working great.

"Are you ready to release all of it in one go? Focus all of this power between your hands, it should ignite with my flame if we get it right." Natsu's putting his palms in front one another.

"Almost... Getting there... Natsu, RELEASE!" HOLY, NO FOREST FIRE PLEASE! In between Natsu's hand was a combustion so great, I was afraid we'd have to take care of the trees once more, not to mention, the village. But now, the fire subsides and the flame stabilizes.

"We got it!" Natsu yells in excitement, sounds like they got it to work.

"Not yet, we only got the flame. There's much more besides that." He's right about that much, getting the flame is one thing, using it is another.

"At least we've got progress." So optimistic, it'll be Natsu's downfall.

"Now, try to make the flame flow over your body. Rather than increasing your speed and lower your visibility, like Violet's flame does, enhancing your body with this flame should grant you a lot more physical strength." Blaze sure knows how to teach his flame, alright. That reminds me, he was the one who almost always was the soulbound flame spirit. He was the one that was chosen the most as the Dragon Slayer's first. I never really thought about it all too much, but being soulbound to a Dragon Slayer, definitely is something that brings you closer to one another. I stare at Natsu while thinking about the bond we share, I can't help but think of further increasing that bond...

"GNNNNNNNNNNNNNEH!" Natsu makes these weird sounds while he's trying something new, always does. But he's steadily getting it going, the flame's spreading over his body.

"Alright, now we're gonna try using it offensively. If you get this done, all you need to do is make sure you can use it at any given time and you're good. Walk over to that rock over there." As long as Blaze makes sure it doesn't spread over to the trees, it's fine.

"Try to focus the fire into your upper right arm." Natsu exhales and inhales slowly before focusing the flame into his right arm. It slowly shifts over from his entire body and concentrates around his right arm.

"Narrow it down just a tiny bit more." The flame grew brighter and brighter around his arm. Eventually, it reached the point where it was the real, crimson flame.

"NOW, HIT IT!" Natsu swings his arm back, preparing for the strike. He now lunges forwards while throwing his arm out. The fire around his arm erupts... just before he hits the rock. Now, with an arm that has no magic whatsoever, he crushes into the rock. There's a moment of silence, the only sound we hear are the bones in Natsu's hand cracking.

"ITEEEEEE!" He falls on his ass while holding his right hand.

"HAH! Oh man that was great." Of course, Blaze is having the time of his life.

"Well, we couldn't really expect it to go THAT smoothly, could we?" I react to Blaze's teasing.

"I suppose you're right, nevertheless, it was hilarious." Sigh, I suppose he'll never learn.

"Hey, I tried, ok?" I crouch down next to Natsu. At this point, I feel like I'm not bothered by Blaze's presence anymore. Or, at least, not enough to stop me. I take Natsu's hand and gently place my lips on it. I can feel Natsu's heartbeat rising. This control I have over him feels great. When I seperate my lips and his hand, I smile warmly at him. His face is as flustered as ever.

"It'll get better real soon." I reassure him.

"I know you're right. But, why'd you do that." Hmmm... Ah, I know.

"Because I felt like it." This sure seems to surprise the hell out of him.

"What's wrong, did you dislike it?"

"N-No, that's... that's not it. It was just sudden, okay?!"

"Sure, let's go with that." I stare deeply into his eyes, I think I have him trapped. He doesn't dare to look away now. I come closer, testing him. He doesn't back away. Has he gained confidence? I suppose I should wait it out. I stop closing in on him, and just stare him down. After only a bit, he himself starts moving closer. The little space that seperates us now would be an armlength.

"WHOA, HOLD ON! WE'RE HERE FOR A MISSION, AREN'T WE?"

*Sigh* "Yeah, Blaze, we are."

"Then get up and move already!" Ugh, he sure knows how to ruin a moment.

"Anyways, Natsu, try it once more, ok?" He complies and rises on his feet. Walking over to the same rock, the one he now holds a grudge against, the crimson flame covers his right arm once more. This time, the flame did not leave his arm at the wrong time. Instead, the flame erupts as Natsu hits the rock without even leaving his limb. Natsu punched straight through the rock without losing the crimson flame's strength.

"How about that?" Natsu grins.

"I suppose you did good, kid." Even Blaze has to admit it.

"So, now that we got that done, what's next?" Natsu walks over to me.

"Oh yeah, I was gonna teach you something myself."

"Something.. from you?"

"Yeah. I didn't teach it to you before because your magic container wasn't large enough yet. This technique is somethig you maintain over time, so it can be quite draining. But, eventually, you should be able to keep it going without any trouble."

"Alright, so what's it supposed to be."

"It's something that should help us infiltrate the enemy's territory. Something to enhance your sight so you can detect all sorts of energy. The easiest one to sense is, of course, magic power. But you can sense spirit power, and even life power with this technique. Of course, the latter will be the hardest to sense, hence it is the feintest. But eventually, I'm sure you'll be able to do it. Now, the problem is that I don't know what kind of power these creatures contain, but I'm sure that with the whole situation, they've got some sort of magic going."

"Woah, that sounds really, really useful." Natsu sounds excited. I suppose that's what he's like when he's learning new things.

"Yeah, it's an enhancement for the eyes." And so, I sit down cross-legged in front of him. He follows my example. I close my eyes, taking a moment to take in my surroundings. After a deep inhale, I open my eyes. I'm ... Wait, hold on. This is not how it should be. I'm surprised to discover that I only have the spectral sight in one eye, my right one.

"Violet, your right eye's iris is now glowing brightly. That means it's working, I suppose."

"Yeah, it does." Maybe it's because I haven't used this in ages. The basic spells weren't that troublesome, but this is showing troublesome for some reason. It might fix itself eventually, as I get used to using it again. I can still use it anyways, so let's deal with it for now.

"Alright. So, how do I do it?"

"Uhm, that's a tough one. Let's see. First, I focus on the energy in my surroundings. Then, I put a small portion of magic energy in my eyes. I try to create a harmony between my magic power and the energy around me, which is the toughest part. Then, you should have it."

"Alright." He copies the process I showed him. Closing his eyes, inhaling deeply. He's focusing now, I can tell. I wonder if he'll get it right from the start, I doubt it. He suddenly reached out for my hand, taking a hold of it.

"Na-"

"Being in direct contact with your magic container should help me tune my own." I didn't think of that, but I suppose I should let him give it a shot. His hand feels nice, even though it just crushed a boulder. It's smooth, yet not soft. I don't know why I'm thinking about it so much, but it fills my mind. I hear him exhale, I look over to his face as he opens his eyes. I am even more surprised to see only his left iris to inherit the glowing, violet effect.

"Woah, this is really weird."

"I know.

"It only works in one eye, just like you. It looks weird, too. It's like everything burning with your flame, the only thing that stands out are the magic containers." It's something to get used to, sooner or later, you'll be able to easily distinguish your surroundings with the spectral sight. It's not as good as that as your regular sight, but that might be an advantage with having it only work in one eye.

"We should check around the forest, to see how it works and see if we can't detect something already." He suggests, all in all, that isn't such a bad idea.

"That's not too unreasonable, let's do that." I stand up and take the lead, running ahead into the forest. As I stare forward, something's off. Right in front of me, I sense no magic power with my right eye. But for some reason, my left eye is telling me there's magic power in front of me, even though it doesn't have the spectral sight. I can't force it out of my mind. My thoughts vanish as I detect a feint power coming from footprints on the ground.

"What is it?"

"There's prints here, we might find something if we follow them."

"Should we?"

"I'm not afraid, are you?" He quickly shakes his head, I thought as much.

"But you gotta remain silent." I'm not sure what might be ahead, but I have a hunch that it's something we want to know. I sense the magic power growing stronger as we further approach the end of the road. I hear chirping, but those don't sound like birds. I can't put my finger on it. The leaves are rustling, I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this. Focusing on the treetops, I stare at a feint signal I'm sensing. Watching closely, I distinguish the shape of an unfamiliar animal. It's head shifts my way suddenly, and a lot more pop out of the group of leaves.

"Shit, what are those?" They look like some kind of combination between spiders and monkeys. Whatever they are, they're fast and agile. I can't keep track of them with my eyes, even. The first blow goes to my stomach. I didn't even see it coming, damn it. The assault started on Natsu as well. He's taking their kicks and punches to the arms, legs, back, and every other limb that was available. Their punches might not be devestating, but they sure are frequent. Trying to regain my focus, I summon two copies of myself in order to deflect their attacks. I manage to stand my ground, but I can't retaliate. Natsu has not been able to regain his composure and is still taking hits. I shut down the spectral sight and rush over to him. When I pull him into an embrace, I cloaked the both of us to make our escape.

A little later, we find ourselves puffing before the city gate.

"It was really difficult to tell where the sources came from with the spectral sight, I don't think I can work with it yet."

"No, Natsu. It's not you. I think... I think we're connected on a much higher level than I originally thought."

* * *

So, wooh, new powers! Nothing incredibly overpowered, though. Natsu won't always be able to call upon Blaze. Like he said, he'll only be able to appear few times a day, so definitely not continuously. And something to explain Natsu and Violet's future fighting style, too :P At least, when they aren't using magic. I've not thought that one out, yet... I made another 4K word chappy. Because SOMEONE *wink, wink* has been complaining that my chapters are too short! :(


	11. Chapter 11

Sorry for not uploading in such a long time. The replacement computer I got couldn't... really... write... for some reason. BUT I GOT IT BACK! It's now missing my Nvidia GPU, but at least it works... :( Oh well. It'll have to do for now. Just know that I was stuck in a rather unfortunate situation. Anyways, we're continuing on the situation I left you with last time, was it a cliffhanger? Was it? I don't know, maybe someone might call it that. So, I'm sorry for leaving you guys with that the entire time :)

* * *

Natsu stares at me blankly, I don't think I'm making a whole lot of sense here.

"Huh?" A simple, questioning hum comes my way.

"I thought it was weird how we both only had one eye with the Spectral Sight, but it makes sense now. We're still connected, after all. So, our Spectral Sigh is shared." He gawks at me for a couple more seconds, I assume he's processing things.

"So, you're saying, that I can see through your right eye when we're doing it and you can see through mine?"

"Sort of." I'm not completely sure about what's going on, but this is what I assume to be the case.

"So that's why your magic container looks kind of ... transient." So he's had the same experience I had.

"Yeah, when we were running, I also detected a faint magic source in front of me. So that must've been your eye then." He nods, agreeing to my assumption.

"That's a rather annoying situation..." I strike a thinking pose.

"I... actually don't think so." This caught me by surprise.

"Huh? But we can't properly see."

"Not right now, we can't. But, what if we get used to it? Don't you think this could turn really beneficial to us? We can basically see a lot more if we only focus hard enough." Damn, he's making a really good point. Though, I doubt it'll be easy.

"You might be right, but it'll take a lot of practice."

"Well, of course, but it's also pretty damn powerful." I suppose that's what makes it worth a shot.

"But we can't waste our time on that during the mission. So, only one of us is going to use it only if we're close to it's lair. We can't afford to use it in combat yet." I don't want to go through what just happened again.

"Fair enough. Let's rest for now, we took quite the bit of damage."

"Never pick a fight when you're not in optimal condition." So I say, yet I know that we'll have to be reckless at one point or another. And so, we return to the tavern that houses us.

"Ah, back ye are! Wa happened? Looks like ye got sum good scratchez all over yer body!" The innkeeper emphasizes the word body as he looks at me. Natsu responds with a protective arm.

"Nothing, it's just that we got ambushed while training. These are only minor injuries, and now we have some self-gained information on them." I explain while we drag ourselves over to our room. With a soft landing, we crush into the bed.

"And those guys are the light stuff..." Natsu realizes. Damn it, he's right. I grunt out of annoyance.

"I'm sure that as long as we can rely on one another, we'll be fine." I reassure him. I can't help but notice the pink taint on his cheeks. I'm sure I know why, I just refuse to pay it any thought and continue to press the subject.

"Don't you think so?" I pout at him.

"Well... Eh, y-yeah." He starts stuttering, I love it when that happens.

"Is something wrong? You seem to be thinking of something else..." I give him my most innocent look.

"I'm probably thinking of what you want me to think..." Crap, he caught on.

"Does that mean it's something bad?" I gotta continue on the subject, can't let him take over.

"I-I... I suppose not." There we go, just how I like it.

"Violet, what're you doing?" He protests as I shift over so I'm on top of him.

"Shhhhh." I silence him while planting my index finger on his lips. He's looking so good again today. The sight of his lips squeezed together like that, his helpless position, his insecure look, I can't help but adore it. I'm losing myself while staring at him. He gulps.

"Violet..." He whispers my name ever so softly, I think it's arousing me. Moving in on him, I sense no resistance. Getting closer, I start to feel his breath on my skin. His eyes look deep into my own, filled with desire. I can't stop myself, my head descends at a quick rate.

"Whoa whoa, hold onto your guns, ladies and gentlemen!" Ouch, thanks to Blaze's sudden interruption, my motion resulted in a nice headbutt.

"Could you stop doing that?" I hiss at him.

"And let you do whatever perverted things you were about to do? No thanks. I know you wouldn't just jump a guy like that, so it seems unnatural. Listen to me, I got a hunch. I just want you two to compose yourself and keep yourself from doing what you were about to do at all cost. Only here, you can do whatever you like when we're back in Magnolia."

"Why can't we do it here? Everybody does it here."

"That's the point, just trust me on this one, ok?"

"Ugh, fine." I give in, he better have a good reason for this. But he sounds pretty serious, so I think we better do as he says.

"Honestly, I oughta save my outbreaks for when you guys pull this kinda crap..." He mutters as his voice goes silent.

"Well, what should we do then?" Natsu starts once he realizes Blaze is gone.

"Uhm... I'm kinda curious why everyone acts the way they do, but we can't just ask them, can we?"

"I doubt that, they probably don't even know themselves." Yeah, Natsu's right. It's probably just natural for them.

"Well, looking at the time, I don't think we're gonna do anything action-packed anymore today. What do you say we catch a drink downstairs, we might even be able to get something out of the people there." It's 4 PM now and it's gonna take us at least two hours until we're good to go again, it's not worth going out for two more hours until it's dark. Might as well just take it easy and relax.

"I guess that sounds alright, but I don't think I wanna stay down there for too long." I can see where he's coming from with that one, so I give him an understanding nod. Then, we head downstairs. Immediately, our lungs are filled with the smoke from cigarettes and the breath of drunkards. I see how some people took notice of our presence, yet most just went back to their own business. I feel Natsu's grip around my waist tighten, he must've noticed as well. We take a seat near the stairs, so we can escape quickly if necessary.

"Hoho, unusual to see you two take a seat 'round here! So, whatcha havin'?" The barkeeper comes over to us, as much as I know that he's a nice guy, I still feel kind of uneasy with him.

"The hottest drink you got, preferably on fire." Make it even more obvious how unusual we are, sigh.

"I'll have the same." ... Don't judge. After a couple of blank winks, he nods and goes back to the bar.

"Yo, newcomers! Come have some fun!" We look over to a group of people waving at us. They all seem to be having a great time pushing themselves up to one another. It'd be rude, but I kinda don't want to go there. Natsu seems to be observing them, what's the thinking about.

"Well, it's fine if you don't." They turn their attention away from us until Natsu places his hand on the table and stands up.

"No, we'll be right there." Well, that surprised me. I could also detect a slight grin on those people's faces. As we sit down relatively close to them, we already get assaulted by a question.

"So, how long have ya two been together?" I gulped immediately, but Natsu replied before I could clear up their misunderstanding.

"Only two weeks." What? He winks at me, I guess he's trying to get something done here. Maybe this is his way of gaining intel.

"Ah, only fer a shurt time ey? What made ya com' over?"

"This and that, nature, adventure."

"Hehe, that's what they all say before skiddling right back to ther filthy stone cities." The man had no right to speak about something else and add 'filthy' to it, judging from his appearance and behavior.

"Then I suppose they weren't adventurous enough." Natsu calmly replies as our cups of hot tea, there's a subtle oil attached to the inside edges of the cup that keeps the dim flames from extinguishing.

"I like this guy." The man tells his friends. I had no idea Natsu had these diplomatic skills, though it's not that difficult... That's what I'm telling myself, yes.

"This stuff is quite good." Natsu hums in approval as he took a sip of the drink. As I give it a shot myself, I feel inclined to agree.

"What is this stuff?" I look over to the barkeeper.

"Ah, me thought you'd be the likes for this kind of stuff. It's tea made from the petals of that darned Fern Flower."

"The Fern Flower?" A woman suddenly speaks up.

"Yer know of it?"

"Obviously. The Fern Flower is one that grows in volcanic areas, no regular human can drink it. You'd have to have the lungs of a dragon." For one, I'm extremely surprised to hear someone talk normally around here. So that's why we can drink it, Natsu obviously has those lungs and I... I'm not really human. I know that a flame spirit is immortal, but am I still?

"It is said to grant fortune on consumption. It only grows for a short period during the Summer Solstice. Who the heck gave you something that valuable?"

"It was a stranger that passed by not too long from now. Said I should make sum tea from it and serve it to the ones me thought needed a 'very hot drink', because you'd need it." That's... unusual. Why would someone do that?

"He also left a message for ye, but he said not to read it before you leave this village." And so, he hands us a small piece of paper, old paper.

"Alright, we'll keep that in mind." Natsu takes the sheet and puts it in his pocket, I didn't even know he had those.

"EEK!" I jump up as I feel a squeeze in my behind. I look at the man we talked to and give his hand, which is stretched out towards me, an accusing look.

"Hey, c'mon now. You can't judge good ol' me fer that on-OOOOWAAAH!" He was about to cover it up with some stupid perverted crap until the bench Natsu threw at him made him loose consciousness.

"What the hell, man!"

"You ain't getting away with that!" Oh god, not soon after that, a full barfight evolved. Sigh, this feels just like Fairy Tail. Natsu has a knack for this, doesn't he?

* * *

Alright, sweet. Got this chappy done! Thanks for sticking with me, I hope I'll be able to stick through with this until the end of my small vacation here! Let's hope that this mission will be finished rather soon, we wanna know more about this mysterious stranger, don't we? Hehe, I'm just teasing y'all. But, that's what I'm gonna leave you guys with, later!


	12. Chapter 12

Bamn, vacation gone, just like that. Much sad, lots of sad face too. Ugh. I actually went to visit my parents this vacation, who happen to live in the country I despise most of all South of me. So, last Monday, October 27, my birthday, I spent 13.5 hours in a damn truck with a random guy driving to France. Yay... for me... Regardless of my crappy vacation, let's get going with some more of this mission. I believe I'll actually reveal the reason of this pervnation rather soon, it's been quite hilarious to whitness a certain Pride's guessing game. Damn you, Pride, get it right already! I don't know if any suspicions have been correct until now, but I suppose we'll find out soon enough. Make sure to share your suspicions! I love reading them :P And, of course, who's the mysterious guy? Hehe, much revelation will come in the future. On to this chappah!

* * *

After pulling Natsu out off the fight, I drag him straight to our room. I don't want any of this, we have better things to do.

"V-Violet!" He yells in surprise as I force him upstairs.

"We can't waste our time on this!" I hiss as I push him. As soon as we're inside, I close the door with haste. I let out a big sigh and slide down the door to the ground.

"You always have to get violent like that, don't you?" I ask him, he stares at me blankly.

"Eh, sorry?"

"Leave your excuse for later, we need to rest."

"Huh? But it's only 6!" He pouts as he looks over to the clock.

"We're not gonna be sleeping through the night. Don't you remember? These things come out when it's dark to steal the damn stuff!" I think Natsu needs to be a bit more aware of his duty. I don't know, he needs to go back to his serious mood when he has to, how do I force him into that?

"Oh, right, I guess I got a bit distracted..." Ugh, this is so annoying. He's so damn impulsive!

"Just get to sleep already, we're getting up at midnight." He keeps his gaze upon me as he crawls under sheets. I watch his pieces of clothing being thrown from underneath them. I drop my face into the palm of my hand before turning around and pulling up my top. Usually, I'd love to wear the dress he bought me, but not on a mission. Now, I'm wearing something that gives me a bit more mobility. A simple tank top and some shorts will do just fine, especially with this hot weather. Not that I can't handle the heat, but still. I turn my head sideways as I sense his eyes planted on my back.

"A sight to behold, I take it?" As I whisper this, he quickly turns his head to the window. Heh, still his weak spot. After getting myself into my pyjamas, I shift underneath the same blankets. The first few minutes are spent in silence and looking away from each other, until Natsu broke the silence.

"Ne, Violet."

"What is it?"

"Were there any others besides you and Blaze?"

"..." How long has it actually been since I've seen them? Not that long, 15 years? Something like that. Blaze is back, but Blue and Sparky are still out there somewhere, I can feel it.

"Sorry, I suppose I shouldn't have asked." Damn it, don't force me to answer!

"No! That's not it..."

"Huh? Then what is?"

"I was just thinking about them, and I got lost in thoughts."

"I see, so there ARE more?" Damn it, now I told him anyways.

"Y-Yeah."

"Would you tell me who they are?"

"No, not now. What's been up with you lately? You haven't really been focusing on the mission at all, like you usually do."

"Besides the fact that you're now legitimately a part of my life? Not much..." He says all sarcastically.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"What, you think that isn't a big deal? Violet, I don't care about anyone more than I care about you." I feel him turning towards me, so i do the same and gaze in his eyes. What he just said surprised me, caught me off-guard. Has he constantly been bothered by this? What's really been consuming his mind so much? It can't JUST be me being here, right?

"That's what you've been thinking about?" He nods.

"I've been thinking about how much you actually mean to me."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Ever since you're... real, I've felt differently about you. You used to be this image that was just like a dear friend, kind of like an imaginary friend even. But now, you're an actual... girl." I suppose it's been weirder for him than it was to me, after all, I've always been able to actually see him.

"How different?"

"Like how I'd feel towards a girl rather than a close friend." What's that supposed to mean? He abruptly turns around and leaves me hanging with this question.

"Eh, Natsu?"

"I'm sorry, I don't even really know myself." I didn't really consider this change for him. So he's trying to figure out what really has changed and what it will effect? For me, there hasn't been as much change, but I see him differently now too. How different? In what way? I couldn't really tell you, I suppose that's what he's trying to figure out. I suppose I should leave him to it, for now. All I can do right now is bother him and distract him even more. So I think as I turn towards the mirror, next to the bed. I stare deep into my own Violet eyes. What am I? What am I to him? What am I to the world?

Later, I am awoken by the sound of chopping. As I realize what this means, I flash my eyes open widely.

"Natsu, wake up!" Hearing my voice, he jumped up from the bed. I stare at his naked torso, blessed by moonlight. He stares out of the window, conviction filling his eyes. Has he cleared his mind? It sure seems that way.

"I see them." He whispers.

"We need to get moving, fast." A command comes from him while he collects his clothing as quick as he got dressed. Without any shame, I jump out of bed and do the same. Only a minute later are we outside and peeking around the corner, looking for the troublemakers. As we continued sneaking down the street, we finally caught a couple of them close to the gate.

"There, they're taking some right now!" I whispered as I point at them. Natsu nods and continues down the road in silence. We've already seen the little ones, but the big ones seem to be on a whole other level. They lift eight logs as if it's nothing, which is rather remarkable for their size. You can say that they're about two thirds our size.

"Wait it out, our objective is not them, but the big guy. We should follow them." Natsu whispers his reasoning. I nod in understanding before we quickly take cover behind a couple of barrels as they had turned in our direction. Have they seen us? Natsu peeks over our cover, only slightly visible thanks to the moonlight. His eyes reflect the light into my own, I admired them. What am I even thinking at this point? I'm blaming him for being distracted, but look at me now. Focus, Violet.

"They're leaving with their cargo." Natsu informs me before disappearing around the barrles, I follow him shortly afterwards. The forest was covered in it's own shadow, the only light came from the few beams of moonlight sliding past the treetops. They illuminated the main road, which was the one the little guys were walking. We chased them from the bushes, until we cracked a twig. As soon as the sound was produced, Natsu jumped and pulled me up into the treetops. We watch them turn their heads, searching for the source of the sound. They seem to have lost interest, for they continue down the road. I nod as he places his finger before his mouth.

We stick to the treetops for a little longer, until they seem to stop. They suddenly form two circles, big guys in the outer one, small guys in the inner one. A magic circle forms, and the ground seems to start cracking. It bursts open, the creatures fall through the hole. I sense Natsu getting ready to jump, but I halt him.

"Don't, we're not prepared. Let's just check what's in there and get a good idea on their numbers. We'll go in tomorrow." He retains himself from leaping into the hole and nods. I activate the Spectral Sight and check the energy readings down the hole.

"Holy crap." I whisper as if I wanted to shout it.

"That's... a lot of those things." Natsu mutters. I must be seeing at least two hundred of those things.

"Rushing in there is definitely not an option." He continues.

"Let's retreat for now, so we can find a better way to handle this." This is gonna require a bit more thought than I originally imagined. We backtrack our way to the village, it took us a while. I check the clock, it's 2AM now. I yawn, of which Natsu takes notice.

"That sure took a while, for some mere stalking." I hum in confirmation.

"You tired?"

"A bit, but this is important. We can't fight all that."

"We won't have to. I'm sure we can find a way to deal with them, we just need more information."

"How do you suppose we get that?"

"We need... a test subject."

* * *

Apologies for making this one a bit shorter, but I HAD to get it out tonight. I couldn't leave you folks in the dark for much longer. I always wanna say guys there, but I realize that, for once, the group of people that I talk to isn't completely male. In fact, it probably consists mostly of females. Anyway, school has been a bitch and my vacation has been messed up with all the travelling. I hate travelling, colossal waste of time. I just wanna stay in one place with decent net :(


	13. Chapter 13

Yay for extended weekends! So, I'm hoping to take down this mission by the next chapter at max. I've actually made much more of a fuss out of it than originally intended, bit that's not necessarily a bad thing. Now, it's already pretty late, I just haven't really been able to get myself to start this. I hope I'll be able to concentrate a bit, but I doubt it. Always the worst, when I can't concentrate and get super distracted. I have issues like that, oh well. I just gotta sit down and mash the keyboard, that'll work.

* * *

Next day, we're peacefully ordering our breakfast. As the double portion of bacon with toast and eggs gets served, Gûntr starts asking about our progress again.

"So, anything new?" We both whimper at the memory of last night.

"Sure is, but we can't tell ya. All you need to know is that we're gonna need at least one more night before we can finish it up and that we might be housing a guest rather soon." Natsu makes sure he knows only the essentials of our plan, we're gonna need his coöperation.

"A guest, eh? What, ye got sum pals incumin'?"

"You'll see." I brush off his question. I think it's for the best if he didn't know, anyways.

"As long as yer two ar' gonna take care of 'im, me's fine with it." And so he leaves us.

"So, we know what to do by tonight, but what do we do to pass the time?" Natsu asks me.

"So that's something you didn't think through, huh? Well, we could just go to that place and check it out. It'd help raise some suspicions I got. We know that they only come out at night, so they're either scared of humans, or daylight, and I doubt it's humans."

"They didn't seem very hesitant to attack us on sight." He mentions, as I'm aware of that. There's a pretty high possibility that those things can't deal well with sunlight. If that's the case, we might have a shot at this.

"Let's leave at noon." I turn away from my food, looking at Natsu once more. I nod, agreeing to his suggestion.

"Why don't you want to go now?"

"Because, I still want to do something." He grins at me, he clearly has no intent of letting me know what that is.

"Just meet up with me at the city gate, alright?" I sigh as I agree to his terms. He runs off while waving me goodbye. I don't know what he plans to do with the next hour and a half. Better yet, how will I spend it? I sense multiple pairs of eyes staring at me, now that I'm alone. Alright, I can't take this. I need to know. I walk over to Gûntr and take a seat in front of him. He's cleaning the bar up as I ask him a question.

"Gûntr, could you explain why everybody here has a lack of... restraint."

"Eh? What ar ye talking about, ya fluff?"

"Everybody's really intimate or... let's say... a little bit too touchy." He stares at me blankly.

"Wait, yer tellin' me that this ain't normal for ya regular folks?" I shake my head fiercely.

"Come to think of it, we wern't always like dis. Most of the people 'round 'ere were nomads. When we settled down, that's when the magic hap'ned."

"So, it has something to do with this village, and not the people in it?"

"Not sure, but me thinks that way."

"Thanks, Gûntr. That actually makes me feel a whole lot better about this place." I turn away from him, satisfied with the information I gained. As I walk up the stairs to our room, I realize something. If it's not themselves, but the actual location, then wouldn't it affect Natsu and me as well? Maybe it already has. I must admit, we've acted rather rash before. Maybe that's why Blaze told us to prevent ourselves from doing anything of the sort at all cost. So, he knew all along that it must've been something with this place? I didn't expect that from him. I lay myself down on the bed as I tinker on about the situation. The village, the creatures, Natsu. Come to think of it, I still don't really know. Has he already found the answer? Because I sure as hell haven't. What are we to one another? I mean, obviously, we're pretty significant to each other. But, I'm not so sure in what way that's going. Maybe I shouldn't be thinking about it, perhaps this village is clouding my judgement. Yeah, probably. With that in mind, I stare at the ceiling.

"Violet? Hey, Vi. Violet!"

*THUD!*

"OEMPF!"

"What the hell, Natsu!"

"Hey, not my fault you were napping your way through time."

"That doesn't mean you gotta knock me out of bed!"

"It was an accident." He looks away, trying to make his lie look solid.

"How does one 'accidentally' force one to the ground under these circumstances?" His slight grin explains enough.

"Whatever. Let's just ge- Holy crap, it's already 2pm." I look over at the clock and realize what time it is.

"Yeah, that's why I came to get you, you didn't show up." I hiss at him, telling him that he has no right to complain.

"It was worth it, anyways." He grins, yet again.

"Let's just get going already." And so, we set out. It wasn't that difficult to track down the road we walked just the other night.

"Seems familiar, I think we're on the right track." Natsu looks around, detecting some similarities between what he remembers from last night and what he's seeing right now.

"We should be ready for a surprise attack, we don't know what they can do yet. That's why we're here, to figure that out.

"Right." I detect a shift in the environment. Nothing too noticeable, but I know something's up.

"I think we're close."

"Yeah." I agree to Natsu's statement as I lower myself in a crouching position. By checking the earth, I know that our destination is straight ahead.

"You felt it too, right?" So, he managed to detect it as well. I give him an affirmative answer.

"Yeah, I did. I'm surprised you were able to sense it." What we're talking about is a change in the area's magical presence. I keep stepping forward as I praise him.

"HOLD IT!" He halts my motion by blocking the way in front of me with his arm. I look down and see a vague inscription on a rock tile. Natsu crouches and dispatches the earth covering the rock. A lot more inscriptions are exposed this way.

"I think we found it." Natsu doesn't reply, and stares at what I suppose to be the entrance to our enemies' lair.

"That we haven't been attacked yet is also noteworthy." That's exactly what I was thinking.

"Agreed, I think we can be almost certain that they can't handle daylight very well. However, we must be certain." We need to get one of those things outside so we can see how they react to the light.

"That's why we're here."

"Exactly."

"They stood in two circles to open this thing. Wanna give it a shot?" He turns towards me, how does he suggest we do that?

"And we're supposed to do that... how?"

"Simple..." He tells me as he creates a circle Flame Copies of himself. I feel like an idiot for not thinking of this myself. With him being larger, I generate the circle towards the center. However, nothing happens.

"Well, that didn't work." Natsu seems about ready to give up on this idea, until I stop him.

"Wait, hold on. Try sending a small surge of magic through your feet, do that with all of your Frames."

"Well, alright then. Also 'Frames'?"

"Uh, flames, fraude, it sounded better in my head, okay? We can't just keep calling them copies, that'd be rather boring." I give him a genuine smile as I kid about this, but I'm sure he's gonna take this wa more serious than he should. As we both spread our magic over the units under our control, we feel the ground shudder.

"Did we get it?" We were answered with the splitting of the ground. We were just in time to jump away from the falling rocks. We hear the screaming of those things down there commence.

* * *

Sorry people, it's late. Late, I don't feel comfortable postponing this like last week. I also don't feel comfortable with the time-consumption that this has. :( Damn it. At least... You know, not much happened. But, there was at least some stuff. It was ok, at least. It's what I'm gonna roll with, for now. Apologies! I feel like I do that too much. Ah well. If I get at least ONE more long chappy next time, this mission should at least have reached it's final stage. I hope y'all are looking forward to that! Thanks for reading, I'm out!


	14. Chapter 14

Follow up on last chapter coming right up! It's time to make some serious progress in the mission, because it's sure as hell needed. I never thought I'd make the first mission this... is interesting the right word? Idk, depends on you folks' opinion. Anyways, I wanted to ask something. People that read my other story know this, but a good friend of mine on this site has got herself in the hospital. Now, Wednesday, November 19, is her birthday. So I wanted to ask anyone that'd be so kind and willing to send her your best wishes on that very day. It would mean a lot to me. Rosy Fire's her pen name. You'll know who it is if you see the story "Wishing for a Brighter Tomorrow" under her name. It sucks to be in the hospital during your birthday, that's like just as bad as my birthday was... Well, maybe just a bit better. No, no it's not. Maybe, idk. I won't stand for it, though! I wanna brighten that day up for her as much as I can. Alright, I ranted a lot there. I'd just appreciate it a lot if some of you were to actually do that.

* * *

On another note, I was thinking about creating a page for Violet on the Fairy Tail OC wiki. Though, I don't think I can get an image for her. I was wondering if some of you wanted to help me out with that? I'm being very demanding today, aren't I? :P I'm terrible at descriptions, so I just wanted to have that there for people to get a general idea from. Or, hopefully, a very detailed idea. Please let me know if you're up for that! Alright, I'm actually gonna give you guys the chapter now, don't worry.

"I think we can be pretty sure about the whole daylight thing now." I nod in response to Natsu.

"But we still don't know a whole lot about them. We need a sample, a hostage. And that's what we're here for."

"Right. I'd say the general idea is for me to get as many off your back as possible while you snatch one."

"OK, but that's not nearly enough to just charge in and try that out. How do we go in?" Natsu made a suggestion for our general plan of action, but it's not a strategy."

"Why, by using one of these, of course." He points at his frames behind him.

"We just send two down there, see what happens. We gotta focus hard not to just let them vanish, and give them a proper death animation." That sounds difficult, but we can give it a shot.

"I suppose it's worth a try, but we need a quick follow up to the confusion that our entrance would cause. They might lower their guard, but we can't delay our actions for long after that."

"You're right, we're gonna have a small time frame if we plan on using all of these at once in combat. That's gonna be draining. I'd say, once we enter combat with the full amount, we have a minute at max." He's right, controlling combat motions of so many at once is gonna be extremely hard on our magic pool.

"So, we send two in. The moment they drop, the rest follows. We go in last. You spread out and keep as much distraction up as possible while I use three to contain one. Now, how will we escape?" Natsu strikes a thinking pose as he hums.

"Climbing isn't an option. We could probably do it, but it's too slow. Laddering up the frames is just ridiculous."

"I got something..." I announce.

_Natsu's POV_

I'm not too happy with this plan, it's risky. But it's the only one we've got. In the end, everything'll come down to me to get us out of there safely.

"I'm counting on you."

"I'm aware of that. I won't let anything happen to you." I give her a stare filled with conviction.

"Right, let's do it." She nods. The moment she gives the sign, we both let one frame drop down. We still need to come up with a better name for these... We really do. The two down there are currently standing still in the sunlight, cast upon them from the opening that gave them entrance in the first place. Nothing attacked them, nothing came out, everything was still.

"I'm getting a bad feeling about this." I make Violet aware of my suspicions that something bad is going to happen. The moment I said that, a flurry or projectiles is unleashed at the two below.

"What is that?" Violet nearly gave us away by talking too loudly, but that's what I'm wondering as well. My frame's hit by the stuff, but it doesn't seem to harm him. Instead, it seeems to lock him in place.

"It's some sort of sticky web, so they do have something ranged to them." I whisper out my conclusion to Violet.

"But they still can't come into the sunlight, for as far as I can tell. So it's not something that greatly concerns me. However, if we get caught like that in the shadow, we have an issue. " She's right about that much.

"Looks like we gotta bring the fight to them. Ready to go in?" Violet reealizes this too and nods. And so, we send our small legion downwards, while following ourselves. As we come down, the first thing I do is spread everything out. I can feel my magical power being drained by the second every single one of these guys are in combat. I gotta pull through, I need to give her time. I look over to Violet and see that she managed to get one from behind while he was fighting one of my own. Looks like it's about time. I watch her run to the center of this giant mess with our hostage knocked out on one of her frame's back. I focus on evading and striking as many enemies at once as possible. Her voice echoes through this giant hole in the ground.

"MASS DELUSION!" As she shouts, a dim wave of her flame spreads from her over the entire room. As it passes the creatures, their attention is averted from us. As if we disappeared from their mind. Just as Violet foretold, she faints immediatly as she cast the spell. Her frames fade and the unconscious body we have falls to the ground. They all rush towards a single point, right before Violet. As planned, they form some climbing contruction. Violet must've projected us flying up through the whole with one of them or something, making them chase after the illusion. So, they're creating not only a way for them to get up, but for us as well. It should be safe for me to climb, since she said her spell would affect all senses. This includes touch, so they shouldn't react if I come into direct contact with them.

"Alright, now it's all up to m-" As I start talking to myself, I trip over my left foot in crash into the ground.

"Huh?" I immediatly turn my head and see that my left foot has been hit by one of those sticky things.

"NO!" NOT NOW, NOT WHILE SHE'S VULNERABLE LIKE THIS! I look over to her helpless body, she can't do anything. Violet didn't tell me how long the spell lasted, it could end any second. I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. Looking over to the frames I got, I see them vanishing thanks to my lack of magical energy. Damn it, this couldn't go any more wrong! Just as I say that, I hear a weird cracking behind me. It's like something's waking up from a deep sleep. I look over my shoulder. A giant spider with fur on it's torso gazes at me. Besides the 4 legs in the middle, the 4 outer ones look like the legs and arms of a gorilla. It has a tail with a needle at the end. I calm myself down, and try to think straight. That must be the damn thing we're hunting. As it passes me, it applies the sticky string to my left hand as well as my right leg. It must not have been affected by Violet's spell, judging by the way it's acting. Almost incapable of moving, I am forced to watch it crawl over to Violet.

"Damn it, DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH HER!" What can I do? Think of something, Natsu. THINK OF SOMETHING.

"GAAAH, BLAZE, I NEED YOU RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!"

"I'm with ya, kid." I hear a voice from my left. As I look over, I'm surprised to see the source being a flying, crimson flame that had a ball shape. It immediatly flies around my back to my right. Before I can even question it, it latches onto my arm and spreads it's fire over my flesh.

"Natsu, remember the very first move I performed during our fight? I want you to use it."

"What!" How am I supposed to do that? I've never done that before!

"NOW, NATSU!" I suppose I've got no time to waste. Without thinking about my actions, I raise my right arms and clench my fist. Then, I send it crashing into the ground. The flames surge into the ground, a hot and blazing crack spreads over the surface and makes it's way over to the giant spider-like creature. As it increases in length, the ground starts to split. I don't believe what I'm seeing, but down there is lava. It starts concentrating, until it spits out an eruption that scorches every body part of the spider queen. It's screech fills the cave. Much to my surprise, I see the crack shift over towards the big pile of underlings, who seem to be retreating from their formation. I think the spell just about lost it's effect. It doesn't appear like it'll matter much, for also their screams are now reaching my ears.

I stare in awe at the pile of bodies before me. Without any clue whatsoever about any of this, I stand up. The string was burned from my skin while all of that was going on. Slowly, I make my way over to Violet. The only other signs of motion I detect are a few twitches from the limbs of the downed legion.

"I don't know what happened, but I suppose it turned out alright." I let out a bit of soft laughter.

"I suppose I messed up, huh? This isn't exactly what we planned for, but at least it's over." I comb my hands through her long, violet hair. As I move it away from the fair skin of her face, I detect something on her neck.

"W-What's this?" These are bite marks, and they have some sort of liquid dropping out of them. I take some of it on my finger and bring it to my nose. As I take in it's scent, I realize that it's venom. My eyes go wide in shock. I quickly look over to her body, rid of energy, again. Realizing the ernst of the situation, I take her on my back and get back to the village as fast as my legs would carry me. I entered the village, panting and breathing heavily.

"I need a doctor, medic, whatever, SOMEONE THAT CAN HELP ME!" I yell at the top of my lungs. The villagers guide me towards the village's healer. I let him run his regular diagnosis on her, hoping for a positive result. As he walks over to me, I cross my fingers.

"I'm afraid I don't know this poison, thus I cannot give her an antidote." My head feels like it's shattered in pieces, glued together, frozen and fired into a poisoned lake from a cannon that was then set on fire.

"Though, it's weird." I hear him mutter.

"What is?"

"You're both fire mages, right?" I nod.

"Usually, thanks to your magic, you should be practically immune to the effects of any poison. Your natural body heat should take care of it immmediately." He's right... THAT'S IT!

"I KNOW WHAT TO DO!"

_Violet's POV_

I feel something annoying, something bright touching my face. I force my eyes shut even more than they already are and turn away from the heat that covers my skin. Wondering what it is, I open my eyes slightly. Immediately after that, shouts of happiness and relief fill the room.

"YES!"

"It worked!"

"She's awake!"

I jump up in surprise. As I open my eyes, I hear something hit the ground to my right. I look over the edge of the bed I awakened in and see Natsu lying flat on his face. I release a slight giggle, only to meet his anger a second later.

"What're you laughing at?!"

"Why, you of course, silly." He backs down immediately and smiles at me, showing sincere happiness.

"What's wrong? I-Is there something on my face? Did you draw something while I was sleeping? Wait, why was I sleeping? Where am I?" I check my surroundings to see that I am in a room in the village. This looks like the medical bay.

"Hehehe, things didn't really go as planned..." Natsu starts, oh this better be good.

"...And that's...That's what happened."

"So, you're saying that not only did you fail in following the plan, I also nearly died?"

"When you say it like that, it sounds like I fucked up terribly!" He retorts.

"Well, you did."

"No, I didn't! I killed the damn thing!"

"Because you fucked up." I add. His angered face is cute as all hell.

"I saved your life!"

"But endangered it in the first place." I can hear the people around us laugh at our argument.

"Anyways, so if I was poisoned, and I couldn't get rid of it naturally thanks to being all out of magic power, how'd you fix that?"

"Well...uhm..." Natsu looks away shyly.

"Allow me to explain." The villager that seems to be in the position as doctor steps forwards.

"After explaining to Natsu that the poison should have no effect thanks to a fire mage's natural body heat, he came to the conclusion that it would be best to share his own with you." ...Realizing what he just said, my face becomes red as a tomato.

"YOU DID WHAT?!" Natsu immediatly ducks under the bed.

"I did it to save you, I promise!"

"You didn't peek, did you?" He gulps.

"DAMN YOU!" I jump out of the bed and chase him around the room.

"Well, looks like she's just fine." A random villager speaks.

"Yup, good thing he made sure to remove her clothes for the maximum effect." I become even more enraged after hearing that.

"NATSUUUUUU!" He abruptly stops and turn around. I run right into his embrace.

"You know, I was really really worried about losing you."

"Wh-What're you saying all of the sudden?"

"The truth. It helped clear something up for me, but I can't be certain just yet."

"Uhm, well ok then. You...You can let go now." I try to push him away from me, heavily embarassed by his actions. After getting some distance between us, he tilts his head and gives me a sincere smile. Oh man, he knows just how to get me cornered like that, doesn't he?

After getting all my strength back, Natsu and I are preparing to leave for Magnolia. We were rewarded with a decent sum of 150.000 jewels. We wave all the villagers goodbye and depart. I smile while we make our way back. I'm happy our first mission was so exciting, at least, I thought it was. In the end, it turned out to be quite hectic too. It scares me that things can get this dangerous. But, on the other hand, I'm not scared anymore when I picture it with Natsu. Some idle conversation keeps us entertained until we reach our destination. I mentioned how he was a pervert, every once in a while, which got him very flustered. I love it. However, that came to an end upon our arrival.

"Back home."

"Back home." I repeat his words.

"We're back!" He shouts upon entering the guild hall.

"You were gone for quite a while, how'd it go?" Mirajane immediately asks us.

"It was great, I loved every bit of it!" I grin widely at her.

"Mirajane, can we use the library?" Natsu presents a new subject.

"Huh? Sure, but why?"

"I just need to look something up." He explains as he pulls me downstairs.

"So, what're we looking for?"

"Blaze told us that we couldn't do anything fluffy there, in particular. Remember?"

"Yeah."

"He told me to look up that tree that caused all that trouble in the first place."

"Oh, well, let's do it then!" After a little while of searching, I ended up finding it. It wasn't that difficult, thanks to the alphabetical order of the books.

"Here it is, the Yokobu tree!" I motion him to come over as I place the book on the table in the center of the library.

"This tree is one of the malicious seven among plants and trees." Natsu starts reading.

"The malicious seven?" I ask. He ignores me and continues reading.

"It has an aura that stimulates one of the seven sins, lust."

"That explains why everyone around there was so touchy." I knew that wasn't natural.

"Just like all others of the Malicious Seven, if one is under it's effect for an extended period of time, E.G. a year, the effect becomes irreversable."

"Looks like they won't be changing, then." I comment again, Natsu gives me the same treatment and simply continues reading.

"This tree has a different effect on arachnids or anything of the sort. With these, it stimulates gluttony instead."

"So that's why they were after that wood, they wanted to consume it. Weird, I don't think I ever heard of spiders eating wood. I suppose these effects can be pretty powerful." Natsu finally turns to me, as he finished reading the most important bits.

"Yeah, but that means that we were under it's effect while we were there as well." Thinking back about it, we did get pretty bold at some points.

"Yo, Blaze."

"So, ya know now, eh?"

"Yeah, thanks for looking out for us."

"I wouldn't want you two to make any mistakes under any sort of drug, no problem."

"But, it says it only stimulates lust, not anything else, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Then, I'm certain."

"About wha-" I was silenced when Natsu forces his lips upon mine. I stare into his eyes, before pushing my lips upon his own as well. He backs away, I feel the pressure on my lips go away.

"I love you, Violet." I feel shocked, but also happy. My eyes get watery. I move my head forward to engage into another kiss.

"That's not something I'd think someone'd do with their 'childhood friend'." I recognize Gray's voice. Surprise, we both look over to the stairs. I'm pretty sure that's about half of Fairy Tail grinning down at us.

"Mind your own business, will ya?" Natsu immediately yells back at him.

"Whatever you say, man. Show's over, people!" And so, they leave again. That was weird, I suppose they got what they wanted.

"After thinking I'd lose you, I figured out what it is that you mean to me. Seeing your helpless body made me realize how precious you are to me." Natsu explains to me.

"It made me realize that it really is love what I feel for you." My eyes now overflow, and tears roll down my cheeks.

"I happily return those feelings." Now, I actually engage another kiss...

* * *

Damn, I ended giving ALL the answers AND more. Well, I suppose it was about time, am I right? :p I may have rushed it a bit, but c'mon. All of us, including me, have been dying to see SOME love. I liked the chapter, though. It had some comical elements in it, as well as something that I would maybe dare to call a fight. I'd call it more... Idk. Help me. Ah well. Think about the things I said, please! Help me out with Violet's page, and be sure to give Rosy your best wishes this Wednesday!


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